Recommend tires

[mstone]

@lordofthemark 182027 wrote:

I am pretty sure its time to replace them both. I am pretty sure I want to get 28’s. I use the bike mostly for commuting, and for recreational rides on paved trails and streets. (I ride do recreational rides on the GCCCT or the C&O maybe once a year or so) I would like to be able to go faster, and I don’t mind being a littlem more uncomfortable – I suspect any narrower than a 28 is not a great idea, but 32’s are too wide.

“too wide” defined how? I’m firmly in the camp that you can’t have too wide a tire unless it doesn’t fit. It’s also pretty certain that getting a narrower tire won’t magically make you go faster. What really affects your speed is how stiff the tire is. In general, the stiffer the tire, the more durable and the slower it will be. And because life, the more flexible the tire, the faster, more fragile, and more expensive it will be. Weight is also an important factor: the heavier you + the bike are, the higher the pressure you need at a given tire size. A wider tire lets you run with a lower pressure, which is a major factor in how a tire handles/feels/performs/lasts. Disregard tire suggestions from people significantly larger or smaller than yourself because you’ll be talking apples and oranges. (With that in mind: I’m on the clydesdale end of the cycling spectrum.)

Both of your current tires seem to be 32s (though those are the blurriest pictures in the entire world ). The “28×1 1/4xblur” is an old style measurement, where the 28 is the diameter of the tire in inches all the way across the wheel rather than the diameter of just the rubber part in millimeters. 32-622 is the same tire size in the modern format. Looks like you might have enough room for a nice 37 or 38, though it’s not really easy to tell from the picture. In continental’s lineup I like the top contacts in 37-622 for a decent balance between durability and performance if you can find them on sale. Other manufacturers have similar offerings.

[hozn]

I agree w/ mstone. I can pretty much guarantee you that my 44mm Extralight Compass Snoqualmie Pass tires roll faster than your 28/32mm tires. (And are less puncture-proof.)

Jan Heine, who admittedly is often more provocative than scientific, says this about ROAD BIKE tire sizing “tires narrower than 38 mm don’t really make sense any longer. 38 mm tires still give you the “connected to the pavement” sensation that makes a racing bike feel so fast. Below 38 mm, all you gain is harshness. The bike doesn’t feel any better, just more jiggly.” https://janheine.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/how-wide-a-tire-should-i-ride/

For a general purpose bike especially, I’d get the largest tire you can fit. In addition to something like the Conti Top Contact, I’d probably also consider some of the new lighter-weight gravel tires like the slick 40mm Panaracer Gravel King (not Gravel King SK) https://www.panaracer.com/lineup/gravel.html (They also make this in smaller sizes if your frame can’t clear 40mm). The 40mm Gravel King is a good illustration of the earlier point: the reports I’ve read agree that it’s not as fast as a similarly-sized Compass tire, despite being lighter and also having smooth tread. Casing stiffness matters more.

There are lots of options in 32c too.
Eg. WTB Exposure 32c if you want/need to stay a bit smaller: https://www.wtb.com/collections/road/products/exposure-32c
Or the Specialized Roubaix 2bliss 30/32 (which is a 32mm tire): https://www.specialized.com/us/en/roubaix-pro-2bliss-ready/p/130434

These are all tubeless compatible tires which adds another avenue for flat protection (albeit with some learning investment required).

If you like thinking about tires, there’s also an interesting perspective from the folks at Challenge that was featured on recent Cycling Tips podcast: https://cyclingtips.com/2018/09/cyclingtips-podcast-cyclings-calendar-problem-and-tubular-gravel-tires/ . Gist is that supple (tubular, in this case) tires are actually more resistive to flatting than tires that are built with thicker rubber. Because tire deforms around sharp objects rather than resisting and being cut by said objects.

[Brett L.]

For my “Do everything bike”, I’m a huge fan of my 38c Schwalbe Marathon Almotion tires. Designed as a touring tyre, I have only punctured twice in the last year with those things riding through PG County roads (did you know PG County doesn’t actively have a road sweeping contract????) and both times that sealant did it’s job and I was able to carry on (I’m set up tubeless).

[lordofthemark]

@hozn 182099 wrote:

If you like thinking about tires, there’s also an interesting perspective from the folks at Challenge that was featured on recent Cycling Tips podcast: https://cyclingtips.com/2018/09/cyclingtips-podcast-cyclings-calendar-problem-and-tubular-gravel-tires/ .

At this point I will spend a lot of time thinking about tires than buying, because it seems mine are good for quite a lot of added miles, perhaps especially if I swap them out, which I think I will do (but not before Saturday). I would like to complain about tires that say ’28’ on them actually being 32’s, but given that people clip into clipless pedals, I guess I need to get used to confusing terminology (and will need to work on clincher vs tubular vs tubeless)

Also not pleased that there does not seem to be a shortcut to faster/more durable other than more $, but as Mstone says, the way of the world.

But my question (I imagine asked before) for all you smarties – if wider tires are faster, why do I see so many people riding skinny tires, especially people on road bikes, and in general people riding faster than I do? Does everyone with a “stronger motor” just happen to be among those fooled by skinny tire propaganda?

another question

from some online site that compares tires, it indicates that Contacts are lighter than, and take higher pressure than, City Riders of the same width – and Sport Contacts lighter than, and higher pressure than, Contacts.(on the other hand the Top Contact Winter is lighter still, but not quite as high max pressure as the Sport Contact) So A. Is that a good way to think about things? B Is that part of why the Top Contact is recommended? C. Wait the regular Top Contact is not lighter than sport contact – but is a folding tire?

Or should I look at rolling resistance estimates from here https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/tour-reviews/compare/continental-city-ride-ii-2015-vs-continental-contact-ii-2015-vs-continental-top-contact-ii-2015

[Emm]

@lordofthemark 182102 wrote:

But my question (I imagine asked before) for all you smarties – if wider tires are faster, why do I see so many people riding skinny tires, especially people on road bikes, and in general people riding faster than I do? Does everyone with a “stronger motor” just happen to be among those fooled by skinny tire propaganda?

Different bikes (weight, geometry, etc), overall fitness of the rider, and other factors not related to your tires contribute significantly.

On my fancy carbon road bike with 23s I average about 15-16 MPH for long rides. On my steel adventure bike with 36 tires I average about… 15-16 mph for long rides :p So honestly, I don’t think the tires make a huge difference, especially if you’re not racing. I think a person’s overall fitness, the type of bike they ride (factoring in the bike’s geometry, weight, etc), and other characteristics of the rider and the bike make a bigger difference. Skinny tires tend to come on road bikes, which tend to be lighter than hybrids like your bike, so that may be why you see them so often.

[mstone]

@lordofthemark 182102 wrote:

But my question (I imagine asked before) for all you smarties – if wider tires are faster, why do I see so many people riding skinny tires, especially people on road bikes, and in general people riding faster than I do? Does everyone with a “stronger motor” just happen to be among those fooled by skinny tire propaganda?[/quote]
At a certain point the tire width does affect air resistance. A wider tire might require a wider frame and more space between the pedals, which is exacerbated if the bike has a short wheelbase; this can also affect air resistance. If you’re not trying actively pedal more than 25MPH/aren’t being paid to ride a bike, you don’t need to care. If you’re really light (like most people paid to ride bikes), you can run a lower pressure with a relatively skinnier tire. If you buy a light road bike they didn’t (until recently) take a wider tire. Until recently it was hard to get brakes for a road bike that worked with a wide tire. All sorts of reasons, mostly boiling down to a bad few years in the industry and the power of habit. Even the pros are running wider tires than they were 20 years ago, which were narrower than tires from 40 years ago. I suspect a lot of it had to do with chasing ever higher pressures without any science showing that it was helping. Now the trend is reversing, but slowly/conservatively because the science is still hard. You can’t double-blind-test a race.

Quote:

from some online site that compares tires, it indicates that Contacts are lighter than, and take higher pressure than, City Riders of the same width – and Sport Contacts lighter than, and higher pressure than, Contacts.(on the other hand the Top Contact Winter is lighter still, but not quite as high max pressure as the Sport Contact) So A. Is that a good way to think about things?

No. All the pressure on the sidewall tells you is how high you can pump the tire before you risk popping it off the wheel. It has nothing to do with how high you should pump the tire. It loosely correlates to tire width (higher tires generate much higher forces on the wheel at a given pressure) but not at all with tire quality (cheap tires can be overengineered, or high quality tires might be made of really strong materials).

Quote:

B Is that part of why the Top Contact is recommended?

No, it’s because it’s relatively fast rolling but still durable. The compass tires hozn mentioned are much more flexible, but I personally wouldn’t run them on a daily commuter. I do plan to put some on my weekend bike the next time I need a new set there.

Quote:

C. Wait the regular Top Contact is not lighter than sport contact – but is a folding tire?

The top contact isn’t lighter than the plain contact either, but from my experience it rolls a little better. There’s a lot that goes into the weight–how much rubber there is, what the bead is made of, what the breaker strip is made out of. The easiest way to reduce weight is to make it thinner, but the thinner it is, the more delicate it is. But on the other end of the spectrum is a bulldozer tire, and who wants to ride around on that?

Quote:

Or should I look at rolling resistance estimates from here https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/tour-reviews/compare/continental-city-ride-ii-2015-vs-continental-contact-ii-2015-vs-continental-top-contact-ii-2015

There’s “some” debate over how meaningful the rolling a tire on a drum tests actually are. Those are exactly the tests that led to the higher-pressure-above-all-else craze, and if you look at the numbers you’ll see why. The problem with the numbers is that people haven’t been slowing down with wider tires the way those numbers say they should.

[Judd]

@Emm 182103 wrote:

Different bikes (weight, geometry, etc), overall fitness of the rider, and other factors not related to your tires contribute significantly.

On my fancy carbon road bike with 23s I average about 15-16 MPH for long rides. On my steel adventure bike with 36 tires I average about… 15-16 mph for long rides :p So honestly, I don’t think the tires make a huge difference, especially if you’re not racing. I think a person’s overall fitness, the type of bike they ride (factoring in the bike’s geometry, weight, etc), and other characteristics of the rider and the bike make a bigger difference. Skinny tires tend to come on road bikes, which tend to be lighter than hybrids like your bike, so that may be why you see them so often.

I can attest that Erin can ride her heavy steel Renegade with a rack 20 mph on the flats. Road bikes in general are moving towards wider tires with the greater prevalence of disc brakes. I’m a mile or two per hour slower on my commuter bike with 32s than my carbon fiber road bike with 25s, but the road bike is waaaay lighter and has a waaaaay better wheelset. The titanium bike is waaaay faster than the carbon fiber bike although the tires are wider than the 32s on my commuter bike.

I say go with the size of tires that match the terrain that you’ll face. Since you’re mostly commuting in urban areas, a pair of nice Schwalbe Marathons that will help reduce the chance of flats from road debris sounds good to me. Mine have about about 4-5,000 miles on them and still have great tread and the only flat that I’ve gotten is when I misjudged a curb cutout and rammed a curb pretty good.

[LhasaCM]

In addition to what’s been said, Schwalbe has a FAQ page devoted to the “why do the pros use skinny tires” and “do wider tires roll better” notions: https://www.schwalbe.com/en/rollwiderstand.html

For me (relatively slow, but faster than I used to be) – it looks like I’m maybe 1 mph faster on average on my drop bar bike with 32×622 tires than I am on my commuter with 47×584 tires (or my previous commuter with 42×622 tires). However – I chalk that up mostly to it being 15 pounds lighter so it’s easier to get up a hill and to spending more of my time with that bike on the area trails rather than in DC traffic. I’m also 1 mph faster on my commuter bike when I don’t have the trailercycle attached. Lots of variables in play.

[vvill]

@lordofthemark 182102 wrote:

if wider tires are faster, why do I see so many people riding skinny tires, especially people on road bikes, and in general people riding faster than I do? Does everyone with a “stronger motor” just happen to be among those fooled by skinny tire propaganda?

Skinny pros on lightweight bikes ride skinny tires because they’re lighter weight (esp rotating weight) and their skinny tires are usually expensive tubulars and really supple
Availability. most road bikes will clear 25-28mm tires, maybe 30mm these days. and most stock road rims would do poorly with more than 32mm or so.
Tradition/looks – skinny tires still make sense on a nice groomed velodrome, afaik

Agree with hozn/mstone as well

[mstone]

@vvill 182120 wrote:

skinny tires still make sense on a nice groomed velodrome, afaik

Yes, any time you ride on a polished wooden floor you should definitely be using skinny high pressure tires.

[lordofthemark]

@LhasaCM 182112 wrote:

In addition to what’s been said, Schwalbe has a FAQ page devoted to the “why do the pros use skinny tires” and “do wider tires roll better” notions: https://www.schwalbe.com/en/rollwiderstand.html

For me (relatively slow, but faster than I used to be) – it looks like I’m maybe 1 mph faster on average on my drop bar bike with 32×622 tires than I am on my commuter with 47×584 tires (or my previous commuter with 42×622 tires). However – I chalk that up mostly to it being 15 pounds lighter so it’s easier to get up a hill and to spending more of my time with that bike on the area trails rather than in DC traffic. I’m also 1 mph faster on my commuter bike when I don’t have the trailercycle attached. Lots of variables in play.

Not having another child is definitely part of my strategy.

[Author]

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