Originally Posted by
springs
Assuming slicks provide more contact and hence more traction, does this mean slicks create more rolling resistance, other factors being equal?
Good question, to which I don't know the answer. I suspect it is complicated, because it is the extent to which the tyre deforms as it meets the road that causes the rolling resistance, hence higher pressures - as a general rule - meaning less rolling resistance than lower pressures
for the same tyre. Whether the deformation of a treaded tyre works differently I don't know. I do know that knobbly tyres are desperately slow on the road.