Originally Posted by
Cruiser7
This comment was posted in the video you suggest; does it make tooooooooooo much sense?....
Instead of using high volume tires at low pressures, would it not be more optimal to use some form of actual, real suspension (maybe even tunable) plus lower volume tires at higher pressures to prevent flats? Formula 1 cars use suspension to go faster on the smoothest tracks in the world, so why don't racing bikes use suspension, especially on roads like these? Air-filled tires seems like a VERY PRIMITIVE form of suspension, which has the downsides highlighted by this race. I know suspension has been used previously in Paris-Roubaix, so why are high volume tires now seen as a better solution?
The problem with mechanical chassis suspension, is the moving unspring weight, and on a bike, the moving rear triangle and front lower half of the fork, are higher proportions of the total vehicle mass, than on a car. Thus, their inertia pushes back. Pneumatic tires, while not having the hydraulic damping of the suspension, have much less moving mass (local to the pavement variance), and thus are responsive, and move back down quickly after jounce (upward bump), instead of pushing back up on the bike. The closer you can put your suspension mechanism to the pavement undulations, and the lighter, the better. Cushy tires are really good at both.
Good mechnical suspensions on race cars, to allow lower profile tires, the ride quality is worse, but the benefits are:
- For the same outside diameter of the tire, you can fit bigger brakes.
- Lower sidewall tires have less sidewall flex, especially in cornering, thus a lower slip angle, and this means better handling.
Both of the above are not factors for bicycles.