Originally Posted by
Bianchi84
I don't know why many people want such wide tires. Is it because it's promoted so much? Everyone needs widev tires now. 23 to 25c is what I have and still used. Be honest; if back in 1985 someone told you to squeeze 35c tires onto your bike what would you have said? Don't believe the hype! The more of us who purchase tires designed for our rims, the more likely they will be produced.
Well, when I was racing USCF Juniors in 1987, I rode Michelin SuperCompe HD clinchers that were 23mm. They felt fast even when I wasn't that fast of a rider. On the other hand, I was probably 130-140 pounds at the time and riding roads in suburban New York state that were generally in pretty good repair. The guys doing big rides in the touring club were generally on 700c 28mm tires or even 27x1.25" tires, on those same roads.
Now I'm 52, not racing, about 200 pounds or a little less, and am riding roads that aren't nearly as in good shape. So it seems entirely reasonable that I'm riding 32mm or 35mm tires. You are, of course, welcome to ride the tires that you like to ride.
As one piece of anecdotal "data", I had a loop in West Seattle that I liked to ride that was a little over 20 miles. It went around the tip of Alki beach and had some long stretches where you didn't have to contend with stop lights. One season, I decided to keep track of the times on that course with different bikes and tires. No surprise to me, the fastest was the carbon fiber bike with 28mm tires, generally around 1:15. Not too bad considering the stop signs, traffic, and hills. The titanium bike with 25mm tires and the steel bike with 32mm tires were a few minutes slower; say 1:18 to 1:20 on average. The steel "randonneur" style bike with 650b 42mm tires was a few minutes slower than that. It
felt slower, but wasn't much slower in actual timing. I didn't try to measure power output or wind or control for stopped time, so it's not really a good study. And there was about equal variation ride-to-ride in the times of a single bike and tires (although there was a general trend faster over the season as I gained fitness and the weather generally improved) than the variation between the average times across different bikes and tires. But it did prove
to my own satisfaction that there really wasn't much of a difference in actual times, so the point that I took from it was that I should ride what I enjoy riding and not worry about the bike or tires seriously affecting my riding speeds.