snow_echo_NY

according to the specs on my stock bike, 700x25... haha. am i the only person who hasn't customized anything on my bike? i feel like such a slacker.

they are pretty good for NYC streets. narrow enough to ride around potholes and other disastrous items in our path, and quite fast which is nice.

prior to this i did get a stripped and re-built bike but it felt too slow for my tastes.

jsohn

I think in most cases the most efficient wheel for a commuter bike is not a 23. Now, you may not be carrying much stuff, or you may not weigh very much, so ymmv. But, I think we've all seen these charts https://www.bikequarterly.com/images/TireDrop.pdf

I think it does a pretty good job of describing why you want different tire pressure front and back...and also why you may need a wider rear tire...especially if you have panniers.

That said, I really like 700 x 28 or 32 tires for commuting, and 700x25 for fun.

takenreasy

I like excuses for why I'm so slow: 700x38 and 26x1.75 on heavy bikes. But the comfort level is what I'm after.

grolby

Not all of us by a long, long shot.

On the one hand, this kind of drives me crazy as well. On the other hand, I've made my peace with it, since the 700 in 700C is, nominally, the outer diameter of the tire in millimeters, so using C for millimeters makes some sense. On the other hand, 700C tires are not necessarily 700mm in diameter at all these days, so back to crazy-making.

So, okay, this is getting really oversimplified. In professional racing, the need for wider tires in some circumstances has become much more accepted. But, for the most part, teams that use wider tires are doing so because the greater width is dictated by the wheel, not by comfort or rolling resistance. Carbon fiber aero rims these days are moving toward wider shapes, and some of them are more optimized with a slightly wider tire. They're either faster, or no slower with the wider tire. Lots of teams are not using these wheels, and so they're still on traditional 23mm tires. On a wheel not optimized for the wider tire, the improvement you get in rolling resistance with a wider tire is more than canceled out at racing speeds by increased drag. So "racing teams are moving away from 23mm tires now" is not false, but it is a little bit misleading. Many teams, though, do run larger tires in the cobbled spring classics specifically to increase speed and traction on bumpy cobblestone roads. On normal, smooth roads, most are still on 23s.

Maybe ride harder?


The number one mistake most people make is riding tires of any width at too high a pressure. I'm pretty light, so my recommendations for pressure wouldn't be much good for a lot of you, but I've used less and less pressure even in 23mm tires over the years, down to around 85 rear, 80 front these days. My tires are still fast at these pressures, and I very seldom flat. Maybe once or twice a year. Tire quality is going to have a much bigger impact on ride quality than width. I ride pretty nice 23 and 25mm tires (Continental GP4000S/SII), and they're great even on the potholed streets of Boston. Remember, I'm light, so your mileage may vary. I have much wider tires on my normal commuter bike, and they're... okay... I guess, but it's not a great comparison because they're pretty junky by comparison. Most narrow tires will be faster than wider tires simply because most wide tires are not of the same quality. They roll slower and are less comfortable. Tires like Compass are very much the exception.

I'm perfectly happy commuting on my road bike with 25 or 23mm tires. It's not at all too uncomfortable or unsafe. After all I put many more miles on those tires when training and just out riding for fun. But it is nice when I ride my cyclocross bike to work on high-quality 35ish mm tires inflated to somewhere between 40 and 50 PSI. They basically just float over manhole covers and bumps. On the other hand, my cheap commuter bike with a 38mm tire in back and 32 in front is pretty bouncy.

tl;dr the "wider tires are faster" argument is overblown. Quality matters more than width. Get the tires that best meet your needs for price, durability and so on.

kickstart

I beg your pardon .......but 700b is still alive and well, and is still the most common tire size in a good part of the world. Its also known as ISO 635, or English 28X1 1/2. My Gazelle and Flying Pigeon both use that size.

12strings

I've been happy with my 28s...part of my commute is on a chip seal road, so it's a little rougher than normal pavement...I run them between 70-80psi.

spare_wheel

You have a flying pigeon and a gazelle? Do you ever feel like one bike cost a bit too much?

spare_wheel

Thank you. It's tiresome trying to explain to commuters who have read a few of Heine's news letters that skinny tires still work remarkably well.

TransitBiker

It all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I will never use skinny tires, but then again i have no need for them.

- Andy

CliffordK

I've been riding 23mm or 25mm tires for most of my life. I can't really tell the difference between the two. I don't ride them rock-hard, but I am very careful about what I run over.

kickstart

The Pigeon was $200, the Gazelle was $1200.
Compared to other bikes in those price ranges, the Gazelle is a great value as its built to last a lifetime and has the quality to back it up. The Pigeon is a "wal-mart" bike at a wal-mart price, its in the process of becoming a poor mans "Guvnor", not a great value, but its been lots of fun for the price.

In my foolish youth, I threw lots of money at road bikes for rapidly diminishing returns for the latest thing, now I desire long term returns on proven classics.

kickstart

Some on both sides of the fence do like spreading their favorite manure like its some sort of unquestionable truth or like its really important.....Whatever.

My butt, body, and senses tell me mid size tires, 35mm to 45mm offer the best compromise in rolling resistance and comfort, with the fewest limitations for how and where I ride.

spare_wheel

Yeah...I was just teasing.

And I was just looking at the calfee web page and dreaming about a new di2 disc tetra with couplers...

kickstart

OK...long day today.

You have no idea how happy and relieved I am to be free of those temptations.

Buffalo Buff

I commute on 23's and I really like the way they handle. Very nimble, great turning.

We have some potholes and bumpy roads here, but I just keep a very careful eye on the road. Also gotta watch out for gravel on corners.

I went straight from wide, knobby mountain bike tires to the 23's, and I'm honestly surprised at how well the handle bad road conditions. especially at double the PSI as the old MTB tires. Train tracks, minor cracks, bumps, manhole covers and some minor off roading on dirt and grass have all been no issue.

wolfchild

I get a lot less flats with skinny tires then with wide tires. With my 2 inch wide tires I was getting flats from sharp objects regularly, with my 28mm tires I almost never get flats. My theory is that wider tires pick up more sharp objects because of wider contact patch more rubber on the pavement, skinny tires just miss most of the sharp things... Pinch flats is not the tires fault, it's the cyclists fault. Keep your skinny tires at proper pressure and then you won't have problems with pinch flats.

revcp 

I have a pair of Vittoria Hypers (35mm) on order @noglider. Looking forward to trying them. They're going on a HED Ardennes wheelset that I got for cheap, cheap, cheap through my bike fairy. I put them on my Miyata Six Ten.

79pmooney

It depends on you, the roads you ride and the conditions. One thing to consider is that as a commuter, you cannot always focuson the road ahead. (Traffic, lack of coffee, pissed off at the boss, poor light. rain. etc. For any road hazard, there is a tire size that will navigate it and a narrower one that will not. Longitudinal crack, gravel on a turn, etc. The fat tire bikes used on beaches can navigate it all. A 19c tire almost none. Consider your skin and how willling you are to lose some of it then pick the tire width that matches that willingness.

Ben

OgreXT

I ride a 29er w/ 2.2s, Halo Twin Rails. Considering the new(ish) 29 x 2.5 HookWorms by Maxis. They have a great reputation in the smaller sizes. I wouldn't commute any other way, but I am a big guy (getting smaller thanks to regular bicycle commuting) and I "have" to carry quite a bit of stuff. I brake 700 x 23cc, both wheels and tires, too often. I cannot say enough about the Specialized Armadillo tho. If you are going to go skinny, go with the Armadillo. When I was racing and training (and skinnier) they NEVER let me down. The handle w/ the best race tires and they don't flat, not even when traversing gravel fast or urban streets with little glass and steel belt pieces.

noglider 

Not close, unless you qualify this by calling it the big mistake cyclephiles make. The bike unsavvy masses let their tire pressures run down too low. People who think hard and long about bikes may overinflate, but we are in the minority among people who ride bikes.

noglider 

Yes, as I was saying, those sizes have fallen out of existence.

lostarchitect 

Wow, no need to be a jerk. Ride harder? Please. I inflate properly, hence no pinch flats. Simple as that. I ride exactly as "hard" as I feel like.

AlmostTrick

You mean the "letters" documenting controlled roll out studies that were performed on various sizes of tires, run at various pressures, with results that were repeated?

Maybe seat of the pants anecdotes of individual cyclists are preferred over actual studies by some.

I know the narrow, harsh riding high pressure tires certainly always "felt" like they were rolling faster to me, even when my average speeds said they weren't.

fietsbob

You are asking essentially "Who Commutes on their Road Bike"? .. A: No I dont.


Here the planked in Trestle of an active Trolley Track is part of the River shore Walk MUP.
so advantage goes to a wider tire and more so as the Pressure Treated 4 x 12 Planks nailed to the Ties,

continues to shrink and wear with Age, making Gaps between the planks wider..

wphamilton

I know I do, and then let it run down to under-inflated. At some point in that cycle my pressure is exactly right and I enjoy perfection. Keeping it in some narrow range, that might not happen.