Is Wider REALLY Faster?

26 versus 30 versus 35 We know that

wider

tires have lower rolling resistance for a given pressure and we know that lower tire pressures are

faster

on rough surfaces, but is there

really

a disadvantage to using

wider

tires? on road bikes? In theory, the tire should be slower than that, the biggest lie I've ever had in my entire life. I don't know how to tell all of you this, but basically what we're looking for today is to figure out where the trendiest wide tires are. hot right now and supposedly so fast it actually slows you down when the road surface is good now before we continue a quick request from us, can you subscribe to gcn if you are not already? your support means a lot also let us know in the comments section which tire width you think will be the fastest and lastly hit the like button if you enjoy some gcn.

Is it scientific to try it? We have three pairs of plli P0 race tires installed on three pairs of elite tires. Wheels Drive 50, the only difference between them is that one pair of tires is 26 mil, one pair is 30 mil, and one pair is 35 mil wide. Our test is on a dedicated cycling track and the surface is actually very good now, a lot of people and I'm going to put myself in this category and think that the narrower tire will be

faster

on this smooth surface because it's more aerodynamic on these wheels and because this smooth surface simply does not take advantage of the strengths of the wider tires.

Wider tires at lower pressures are faster on rougher, bumpier surfaces, so common sense suggests there will be less or perhaps no advantage when driving on smooth terrain, if that rolling grass blows across the road. that we are setting the wheels. what would be considered the optimal tire pressure for each and that's according to Silker's online tire pressure calculator. Now I can hear some of you saying, well it's not a fair test if you don't put the same pressure, yes, but not for Sure a wider tire will have lower rolling resistance for a given pressure, but in the world In reality, wider tires are not used at the same pressure as narrow tires, wider tires are used lower to get the same level of comfort and vibration absorption. as you would expect and in fact the point is that you can run wider loops even lower for more comfort and more vibration absorption so that's what we're going to do we'll log some laps afterwards at 100 watts and some at 200 watts and some at 300 watts and we will see if the speeds vary between different tires, we will keep our body position on the bike constant, our clothing constant and we will try to do the test quickly so that, hopefully, the weather also holds. constant but we will finish the test by repeating the first one again so that it acts as a primitive control but of course we will be monitoring the weather conditions throughout the day using the gcn weather station Alex, what does it look like out there?

It's windy, but it's okay, 35 mm. tires I don't know, let's go 3 two 1 let's go, you have to go a little faster friend. I'm going slow in the name of science. Speedy 20 six is ​​approaching. They're actually 28. We just found out using a set of clamps right beep beep beep beep they tell you what's good riding at 100 watts 200 WS is fine and then 300 WS like me my thoughts on them riding around the circuit I think it feels normal, yeah, you know what I mean, like I don't know what. I was going to say about them, well, you're right, feel normal because it makes your robot feel normal, yeah, and that's almost like the baseline because they're 28, don't you think that's okay?

Modern wheels are wider, 26 plus tires tend to be a little wider, yes, and I haven't put that amount of pressure on any of my tires for years, no, but because the surface is so smooth, I just don't you notice it, it's okay, yeah, it doesn't feel good, I think second, if you took 26 on shitty roads, country roads with those pressures, yeah, you'd be shaking your teeth, you only have a moment to admire a Pinell Dogma with tires monster truck, look it fits well in the front, possibly a little tight. in the back maybe and maybe quite comfortable there too, but it looks very rude, well, count me back, yes, three, I have speed, Alex, two, one, yes, oh, I lost my pedal, cool, oh my gosh, hundreds, hundreds, easy tiger, don't go too fast, yeah. okay, it's time for the pinell monster truck.

I mean, I'm

really

excited at the prospect of this kind of nerdy, the ready 35s feel very different to ride, yes, particularly going from the 26 straight to the 35, they change the handling of the bike. because that's Trail tire, I think it's called, I mean, it sounds cool, yeah, I think it's because the tire is a lot wider, the contact patch is a different shape, so actually the direction of your bike is different and I Did I tell you what else I noticed that in this little crosswind section I noticed that it felt a little less stable with the 35?

I guess because the rims are not designed to be aerodynamic with 35 mil tires it's like catching the yes, so if you have a narrower rim and you put a big tire on it, you get this kind of balloon shape effect, which means that not only if you have a taller tire, the wind hits it more from the side as the wind comes off the tire, so it's coming out rounded on the tire, that's the reason, in theory, why the tire would fix that , in theory, that tire should be slower than in theory and that's what we're trying to figure out, that's what we're trying to figure out. two, a look at this, it's absolutely disgusting, you see that cassette is dirty, this is what Alex showed up with today, he's about to put this on his bike, I just can't understand how he let us down like that, the biggest . lie that I have had in my entire life.

I don't want to put that M cassette on my bike which also belongs to it. I mean, technically it's mine, yeah, oh Jesus, all that pollution on my chain already makes me ashamed. Admit how much it's annoying of me, well no time like the present 3 2 1, go, go, they look good, they're 31 in case you're wondering, huh, right, 30 feels the same as the 26, yeah, just I would never use a 30 on my road bike just because it doesn't feel like a road bike tire as we see. I do. I use a 30 pretty regularly. I was running 28k tires like 2017 and people thought it was out.

It was crazy, he got 28 on the day no wonder you won the Sprints jersey at the Tour of Britain, right? Didn't you have a huge advantage? Yes, people are generally slow to make a big change in anything in life, let alone cycling, so I think you get incremental jumps with tire width. You tell people wide tires are fast, they get everything. I'll try the next step, whereas in reality you just make a big jump and you'd be like, "Okay, cool." I got the full advantage instead of taking advantage of it over a period of 5 to 10 years, yeah, well I mean it took a long time, it also took time for the tire manufacturers to catch up because before the bigger tires were slow.

I know they are puncture resistant, while these plli 35 are now the same as the 26, they are super fast, super flexible, as you know, we have not had that option before, yes, I have thought about it like that because yes, normally the manufacturers are wide . You figured you wanted a heavy, beefy, puncture-resistant tire for non-stop gravel-like truck travel, while if you want speed and comfort, the advantage gets the top specs, keep the tire for singing and dancing, just a fat version, yeah , then it's the moment when you have it all. I have been patiently waiting for results time to arrive.

I don't know how to tell this to all of you, but basically everyone was exactly the same. There was a small difference between everything, we will count them as the same, yes, in terms of margin of error, they were all exactly the same. Potentially the 35 was fractionally faster. So within the realms of statistical error, you know, but that has completely blown me away because I didn't think it would be like that. as fast as the other tires I thought the fat one was going to be slower, oh yeah I got into this, the fat one was going to be slower, that threw me off, well sorry I don't know the tire, the fat one.

I came in today trying to have an open mind about this, but I had this kind of preconceived idea that the 26 was going to be faster on a smooth surface and I'm glad to be proven wrong because I'm a tire advocate. I know the bike industry is trying to push it and say this is great because maybe it's just good, yeah, yeah, and so on on the surface that's less suitable for a wider tire and when we're doing 300 watts, my average speed his average speed was about 38k per hour. I mean we could actually put together a little graph and put it up on the screen so everyone can see it for themselves yeah, but 38k an hour like we're not slacking on that. speed, so even at high speed the 35 was no slower, my results, my personal results varied more with the lower power, which is kind of interesting.

I thought so, anyway, let us know what you think because you're surprised you race on tires. Consider running on tires now. I mean, I still wouldn't give my binella a 35 if I'm totally honest, even after all that there's still something that feels a little off right now, maybe they're just exceptions we don't want to take. big leaps of faith I still stand by what I said in a gcn technical video a few weeks ago. 99% of people could benefit from simply having the widest possible tire that fits on their bike and using it at low pressure, and I think we've solidified that, even if you ride on smooth surfaces most of the time, take part in the section Comments below and remember to like the video if you enjoyed some gcn, science is okay? bye