Originally Posted by
Branko D
The idea that larger tires roll better because they perform better in RR tests at the same pressure (which is comfort and suspension wise equivalent to inflating the narrower tire to a higher pressure still) and because they have lower suspension losses because they can be inflated to lower pressure is like having your cake and eating it too. Either you have one or the other.
Maybe. The complicating factor is that
the spring rate of a tire looks different depending on the curvature of the thing that's pressing into it. If the static observations hold in the dynamic case of riding, then the effect that increasing width has on reducing compliance is less significant than the effect that it has on tire drop (and, potentially, hysteresis losses).
Unfortunately, I haven't seen any real efforts to quantify the significance of this. The oft-cited BicycleRollingResistance article just assumes that equal absolute drop implies equal compliance with respect to surface irregularities.