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Old 12-02-06, 07:50 PM
  #16  
BlazingPedals
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Bikes: Trek 7500, RANS V-Rex, Optima Baron, Velokraft NoCom, M-5 Carbon Highracer, Catrike Speed

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I know for a fact that you can get 130BCD in 60T, and I suspect they come even bigger.

I've tried 'a few' of the skinnier, high pressure tires. The fastest ones seem to be Conti GP and Schwalbe Stelvio. Unfortunately, they are also the most fragile. I've never worn out a Stelvio - they alway suffer some sort of failure first. For 20" Stelvios, the most common failure seems to be cord delamination, which can happen without warning and without any abuse. Suddenly you get an 'S' in your contact patch which gets progressively worse until you stop riding just to make the wobble quit.



I've also had crashes because the rubber on the shoulder literally peeled off in strips, causing a crash in a turn when I forgot how little rubber was left for traction.

Contis aren't much better. They have extremely fragile sidewalls, to the point of breaking cords if you hit the slightest gravel in the road (like the stuff that always accumulates at intersections.

I've found that the 3rd fastest tire is the lowly Primo Comet. At 1 3/8" it's not terribly skinny; but it's light, it'll take 100 psi, it wears fairly well, and it costs $16-20. Compare that to $30 for a Stelvio and $48 for a Conti (USD). From there, there's several 1 1/8 -1 3/8 tires that are really more for touring at the expense of speed: Kenda, Vredstein, more Contis, etc. If you really want skinny tires, then the best choice is to use 451 wheels; you can get tires for that size down to at least 22mm. But it might be too late for that already; the forks may not be able to take them.
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