Originally Posted by cplager

Maybe this is an easier way of thinking about it: When riding at an almost constant speed, almost all of the force you are putting in is being used to counter-act the rolling resistance/aero drag/flex/transmission losses. Only a little bit of it is being used because you are accelerating. In this case, the importance of the tire weight is a factor of (almost, but slightly bigger than) 1.

It's only when you are accelerating from a stop that most of your force is NOT counteracting drag and in that case, the importance of the wheel weight gets (almost but a little less than) a factor of two.



In the original case, we were talking about 200 grams extra. Even with the factor of two, that's 400 grams extra (less than one pound). Let's say you have a 20 lbs bike and are 180 lbs. An extra pound is a 0.5% effect. I don't most people here are sensitive enough to notice that. If you weight 100 lbs and have a 10 lbs bike, we're still talking an effect smaller than 1%.

There is one caveat here: A heavier tire has more angular momentum and this could possibly (as in, I can't confirm that it isn't) be noticeable when riding the bike in a slalom course or when "pumping" the bike very hard side to side when sprinting. Neither of these are activities that most people do very often, but it can happen. So, in this case, it's possible that somebody might be able to "feel" the heavier tires (but it wouldn't really slow you down much).



Cars are different because in city driving, they are spending a lot of their time speeding up and slowing down. And when they try to reduce the weight, they are trying for much bigger percentages than 0.5%.

Battle Mountain bicycles are not light bicycles. They are aerodynamic bicycles because if you want to be fast, you need to be aerodynamic.

If you are racing a bicycle, then these effects can matter. A 0.5% weight effect may not be noticeable by the rider, but it can make a few seconds difference over 100 miles. If you are a professional racer, then I agree it makes sense to worry about these effects (although, again, rolling resistance is a much bigger issue).

Finally, I agree that there is a wide-spread belief in bicycling that wheel weight is important. And, except for racers, it's basically wrong. It's as important as it is, it's very quantifiable, and if weight is an issue, most of us should eat a bit less instead of worrying about the weight of the tires on our bikes.

For almost all commuters, having a tire that was heavier, but had lower rolling resistance and better flat protection would almost always be a welcome change.

Cheers,
Charles