Originally Posted by
crankythunder
Good Morning:
I am a recreational rider, former racer. Just turned 65 years old.
I weigh 200 pounds, and my race bike which I use for recreation only has Continental Gatorskins 700 x 25. I went to the 25's for a little more comfort as I got older. I run them at 90 psi.
Bike is a Schwinn Paramount (the carbon fiber model)
I like the Gatorskins because I have not had a flat since I have switched to them and do not have any interest in going to another tire.
Need new tires and thinking of going to the 28's or the 32's. Do not know which one I should go to.
What do you recommend?
Thank you very much and you have a good one.
Crankster
I've run into a couple issues with wider tires. The first is simple clearance. For example, on my 1995 Litespeed - from the era when 23mm tires were considered fat - 28mm tires in 17mm interior width wheels rub the underside of the brake bridge. So, only 25s there.
The second issue is, what can you squeeze through the opened brake calipers? I run 25s on all but one of my bikes, and some of the older bikes have older style 13mm internal width rims, so the brakes have to work with those.narrow rims, which limits how far they can open. Indeed, in some cases I have to push hard to get the tires through the brakes when removing or installing wheels.
But that's rim brakes. If you've got discs, you're limited only by what fits between the chainstays and the fork legs! Go for the 32s! And use either the Silca or the Zipp pressure calculator. Or do what I do and average outputs of the two and use that.