Originally Posted by
globecanvas
At the Jam fund ride I spent the first 20 miles chatting with a fast Massachusetts road racer buddy, until I realized he had dragged us all the way off the front of the ride and that wasn't really how I wanted to spend my day so I reverse-dropped him and filtered back through the multitudes to my mellower amigos. Anyway, he was riding 32 tires and making a pretty good case for comfort being a major factor on training wheels.
So I picked up a pair of 28 Turbos, which measure out to almost 30mm on Velocity A23s which are somewhat wide rims. I've been riding them for a week and OMG it's so comfy, like riding in a Town Car. I rode them on a fast team ride too and I don't feel like they slowed me down at all. Supposedly aero cost dominates rolling resistance gains when tires get wider but I suspect these tires match up well aero-wise with the wide rims. Anyway it's a big upgrade to my daily riding experience and pretty cheap too!
a while back i glued up some 27s (which measured 28.5) and described the ride as like being on a magic carpet. they simply smoothed out every little bump and seam. pure pleasure.
however, there's a pretty sizable aero hit. did you ride with power that night? obviously it's not too scientific as there are many variables, but you can look at AP/NP for that ride (or ideally a few rides with the wider tires) vs some others and see if you were working harder.
sometimes it's hard to tell that we're working harder when it's the difference between something easy, say, 180 and 195w.
to my knowledge there are no rims wide enough where there is NOT an aero hit for 28s; the rim has to be wider than the tire. there ARE rims where the aero hit is less than other (narrower) rims, but it's still a hit. IME, the aero hit for 28s is significant.
doesn't mean they are not awesome to ride, though!