Originally Posted by
Airburst
Will a bike that comes stock with 23mm tyres have enough clearance for 28s?
It depends upon the bike. My Specialized Allez Epic came with 21mm tyres and i use 26mm front and 28mm rear tyres. Sure it rubs the chainstays if the wheels aren't true to +/- 0.5mm, but it certainly handles the corners much better!
Especially when I weighed 115kg. Down to 72kg now and have let out a lot of the tyre-pressure, and kept the same sizes.
Originally Posted by
TheReal Houdini
The tires probably aren't the cause of cornering instability. If your tire starts sliding instead of rolling in a high speed corner you're almost certainly going to fall down. Frame and wheel stiffness are more likely culprits. Based on your bike, I'd say it's probably the wheels. How heavy are you?
How much deflection is there in the wheels? Perhaps 0.5mm max? A tyre deforms over 4-6mm depending upon size, pressure and rider-weight. Tyre-pressure makes a
HUGE contribution to handling-feel and cornering-grip. A lot of people over-inflate their tyres and the result is a lot of bouncing around and nervous handling. Pressure should be based upon tyre-width and rider-weight to arrive at about a 15% sink-rate (tyre compression). Here's a
guide to inflation pressure from Michelin. And some others:
Frank Berto - Tyre Inflation
Bicycle Quarterly - Tyre Drop