Originally Posted by
Velo Dog
What's a "heavy guy?" To a lot of cyclists, 175 pounds is a monster. I don't think "heavy" kicks in until about 225.
If you're over about 150, though, I'd stay away from skinny (below 1.4 or 1.5) tires. There's no advantage, and you have to run higher pressures to avoid pinch flats, so your ride and handling suffer. Especially around town and commuting, something in the 1.4-1.7 range works well. You get a decent ride, good acceleration, shock absorption and they're wide enough to float over obstacles that would catch a narrower tire.
You're going to ignore this and buy the 1.0s, I know. But you'll be sorry.
Incidentally, if you're going to be riding mostly on pavement, you don't actually need suspension, to there's no need to sweat fixing that fork. Make it do what you can make it do, then forget about it. Billions of people ride bikes with no suspension at all.
I honestly haven't weighed myself in over a year. I would say I'm probably somewhere between 230-250, so definitely above your heavy mark.
I'm definitely not ignoring your comments. I appreciate them very much. I'm a big kid on my bike; I like hitting little bumps and popping the front wheel up or jumping (riding) off a curb. Last night I tried climbing this really steep hill in a park (I fell off near the top, embarrassed and happy). I'll have to say goodbye to that with road tires.
At the same time, I want to get something skinny enough to make a difference. I've seen bigger guys than me on road bikes without compressing their tires at all. I guess it's all about tire pressure. I'm basically trying to find something that will go as fast as possible while withstanding my weight and at least a little bit of abuse (Unfortunately my ride isn't the smoothest).
Something I've noticed is that the bike shops here are really high. They say I'll be paying at least $25 per tire. I'm not sure if they're better brands or what, but it seems like Performancebike.com has much cheaper tires. I don't see anything bigger than a 1.25 though.
The fork definitely takes on some of the bigger bumps. It's not in great shape by any means, but it does more than what I need it to. If I ever get any money, I'll probably replace the bike before the fork.