Originally Posted by
cat0020
Smaller contact patch for smaller diameter tire, therefore less traction available.
If braking force is increase with less available traction, do you know what happens?
This wrong by pure physics. I am not talking about or getting into the argument of disk brakes.
The contact patch does not really enter into it as such. The braking force is the friction FORCE, which is the pressure force on the tire times the coefficient of friction of the tire. The pressure force is the pressure times the area of the contact patch. If you have a wider tire, the tire patch area increases, but the pressure will be lower as it a linear relationship to the weight divided by the area of the patch. Not trying to be a know-it-all. If I am wrong about this, one of you physicist types correct me. That said there are advantages to wider tires but braking is a function of the coefficient of friction of the tire.