Originally Posted by
hagak
23 to 28 is not a trivial % increase. That is a 21% increase in width.
And a change from 23 to 25 is 18%. So? A small change in a small dimension works out to be a large percentage increase. But it's still a tiny increase in diameter. Going from a 23 to a 28 adds the area of a 1/4" diameter ball bearing for comparison. Do you really think that is such a large change?
Originally Posted by
NoGears
I suspect you don't know what you are talking about. The difference is real and apparent. I can tell very much the difference when I test road a bike that was on stock 23's. And then got home and rode my bike that was on 28's. No bias. The difference is actual.
First off, what is this "difference" you experience? I have bikes on which I have 23mm tires and bikes that have 32mm tires and bikes that have 2.1" (55mm) tires. Yes, there is a large difference in performance between the 2.1" tires and the 23mm tires. But the advantage in performance fall mostly to the 23mm tires rather than the 55mm tires. And, to be honest, the 32mm tires don't shine all that brightly in terms of performance. The bike that has the fastest and liveliest ride is the one with the 23mm tires...but, then, that's not
all because of the tires. The 23mm tire equipped bike is 10 pounds lighter than the other 2 bikes.
There are other factors to consider as well. My 23mm tires are higher quality tires with a higher thread count per inch than most tires. The mountain bike tires are low thread count tires which makes them roll a bit slower along with the knobs. I also have bikes with 32mm tires that are 120 thread/inch count and ones with 40 threads/inch count. The 40 thread/inch tires roll worse than the 120 TPI tires. The TPI has more of an influence than the actual width.