Originally Posted by
gsa103
Rims also play a huge part. I can ride at 75 psi with 23mm tires on tubeless Shimano rims, but less than 90 psi in 25mm tires on narrow Bontrager rims is awful. If the rims aren't wide enough you start to wallow before you hit the sweet spot for pressure. It sounds like that's your issue here.
I read an article years ago about car tyre width which concluded that tyres work best when the width of the tyre contact patch is roughly equivalent to the wheel rim width. With bicycles, you could never justify a rim as wide as the Big Apple, of course, but if the rim is too narrow, the tyre squirms around unless you run higher pressures, which would ruin the ride and defeat the purpose of the wider tyres. I guess Schwalbe could build a stiffer sidewall, but then it would be the same old story: lateral rigidity/vertical compliance, pick one.
It's pure coincidence that I've got a quote from Jeff Jones as my signature, but FWIW, the Jones City and Touring Bike specifies Velocity Blunt 35(35mm) rims for its Schwalbe 28(29") x 2.35" Big Apple tyres. Maybe that's your benchmark (although it doesn't suggest pressures).
Jones as a City and Touring Bike