Originally Posted by
Trakhak
About the Krapf bike and its ultra-short stays and tire width and comfort in general: you're in Utah. Guessing you don't have to contend with a lot of poorly maintained city streets (such as, e.g., those here in Baltimore).
It's not surprising that the (educated guess, having done lots of road miles on a true track bike in my day) supremely confidence-inspiring stable ride of the Krapf bike more than makes up for however little chatter you feel on your predominantly smooth pavement.
At that, the topic of road bike comfort has always been a little perplexing to me. Even on the roads around here, I spend maybe a total of a couple of minutes per ride, if that, negotiating bad stretches. Big deal.
I was happy riding 22-mm tubulars in the '60's and '70's and 23-mm clinchers in the '80's and '90's. I'm maybe slightly happier these days riding 28's on my road and fixed-gear bikes and 38's on my utility/bad-weather-training bike.
But happier not because of so-called comfort but because the incidence of flats has proven to be inversely proportional to the width of the tires I ride.
LOL, no offense but there is no such thing as smooth pavement where I ride. It's all broken, cracked chiseal with a lot of other imperfections. And I feel it's just going to get worse. The people voted to incorporate since our county politicians are crooks and have been in bed with the developers. Yet incorporation means not really having the tax base the folks pushing for incorporation said was there. So I'm betting the money won't be there for awhile to keep up even our crappy roads. I have been able to ride some real smooth pavement years ago on a business trip to Mississippi and man was that a joy! It was the one time the alloy fork on my old 1999 Schwinn Circuit didn't feel harsh.
Of course I do ride alone and pretty much do the same routes over and over and over again. I know where the worse stuff is, each pothole, etc. So it's easy to avoid the worse problems like the potholes. Heck there are some cracks wide enough for my 25mm tires to fall into. You just steer clear of them each day.
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We do have a bike path of sorts here also. But with all the contruction taking place here it's mainly unridable for long sections due to being tore up, blocked by construction vehicles, covered in gravel, etc. Some sections of it are fairly smooth pavement though.
I ride my 25mm tires at around 80/90 psi f/r. I also prefer Fizik Kurve saddles which cushion a bit also. I'm sure this comes into play with the feel I like also. And flats are a rare thing for me. I average maybe one per year. Goatheads are terrible out here but as long as I stay on pavement where the car tires have been all is good. In the early years of the bike path I used to totally avoid it because it had Goatheads all over it. But they been good about spraying for the Goatheads the past half dozen years or so along the path so at least that is no longer an issue.
I just don't currently see any reason not to keep riding my 25mm tires. I guess that could change and then I'll deal with it. But right now I'm perfectly happy with what I ride and that's all that matters to me.