Originally Posted by Starclimber
Hey, Sheldon. Thanks for stopping by. "or the fabric shows through the rubber." My experience is that the rubber becoming absent occurs at about the same time. I must have melded our experiences. A mindless meld, perhaps. My apologies. Seems pretty close to me, though. You don't mention front or rear, so I'm guessing this advice applies to either.
Less rubber to deform equates to less rolling resistance, also in my experience. Experiment: Take two brand new tires, mount them on the bike, ride'm. Take two 'experienced' same brand tires, ride'm, and let me know what you think. I say the 'seasoned veterans' roll better.
Lastly, assuming one puts a 'seasoned' rear tire on the front, and a newbie on the rear, one would tend to purchase fewer tires in the long term. Perhaps your experience is that front and rear tires wear at the same rate, but I don't think you'll back that horse.
Again, thanks for the reply/riposte. Rarely have I found anything you've written to be contentious, or inaccurate, or a waste of time to read. I value your input, and have read MANY of your articles and humorous essays. I'm still hoping a FasterCard application will appear in my mailbox...
PS: I still wipe my tires...and I'm pretty sure I get fewer flats because of that silly habit.
Bill "Somewhat Full of Crap" Kipper, aka Starclimber
I have read both of your posts and there is no veracity to either one. Rolling resistance difference between a worn versus new tire is noise...nothing...nada...and most importantly irrelevant to 98% of the cycling community. Good or new tires have a perfectly acceptable range of rolling resistance when properly inflated...top racers ride on nothing but. You don't rotate your tires if you know what you doing front to back and back to front. You do what bicycle expert Sheldon Brown suggests. Start with two new tires and when the rear tire shows cord you discard it. Then rotate the front tire to the rear and put a new tire on the front...period. Its simple and makes sense. You don't want to be descending at 35 mph and get a front tire blow out due to having a worn tire in front. Again your comments about rolling resistance versus safety are irrelevant. There is no further or improved economy in rotating tires as you suggest either because per Mr. Brown's method there is full utilization of every tire with more importantly much greater safety.
George