The cyclingtips link isn't working, but the Silca one did. That was interesting, and thanks for linking it!

While that one specifically was talking about cross wind effects, it's very interesting in explaining why some of the modern shapes are what they are. For low angle winds it's still not clear to me that the 105 rule would be important, so the cross wind scenario would be a subset of the overall problem, not the whole problem. You can see some evidence of this when you look at the chart of the worn vs. unworn tire measurements, where the flat spot only caused a dramatic separation in performance between the two tires at crosswind angles greater than ten degrees.

It's entirely possible that in low wind situations the forward motion of the bike at high speed, and the change in relative angle of the air incoming to the tires, means that this really is a corner case, and not representative of the widest situations encountered during rides. Given the relationship with tire width, lower pressure, etc. on rider comfort and lower suspension losses, I'm just not sure where all the benefits and tradeoffs net out.

In my own specific case, given my AeroClyde wheels with a 28mm wide rim, it would be a tradeoff between marginal losses in high crosswinds due to the tire exceeding the rim width by 4mm, and the marginal gains in lower suspension losses incurred by riding that 32mm tire at lower pressures than I'd have to ride a 28mm tire in all riding conditions on imperfect road surfaces. I don't know where the math all comes out, but I suspect I'm still better off with the wider tire for my riding, my weight, and the roads I ride on.

The real question for me is whether a 28mm wide 46mm deep carbon rim like the ones I just built my wheelset with actually offer a substantial performance benefit over the same 32mm tires riding on 24mm wide, 25mm deep aluminum rims which these new wheels replace.

Anyhow, thanks for that article. It was interesting, and I definitely learned something from it, which I appreciate.