Originally Posted by
Iride01
Why does a person have to be 300 lbs to do this? I've done it that way plenty of times in my lifetime and I've never been anywhere near that big Sometimes I've started 10 or so PSI lower. But if I did, I also at some point tried a higher pressure as well as a lower pressure.
Understand that I don't disagree with using Silca's or some other tire pressure calculator. However I'd disagree that they give you the recommended tire pressure to keep in your tires. They can only recommend a reasonable place to start at to begin to find out what tire pressure you should use for the road surface conditions you ride.
Comparing performance stats and perceived effort is among the things that determines where my tire pressure should be.
Simply because heavier riders require higher tire pressures. So a 300 lb rider might get closer to actually needing the max tire pressure stated on the sidewall. For everyone else this max pressure is almost certainly going to be way over the optimum for speed and comfort. So why would you want to start there?
Of course the Silca and SRAM calculators are intended to provide a ballpark starting point for fine tuning, so you don’t have to waste time starting miles away from the optimum ie at the max tire pressure!