So, maybe a quality 32 that is also light is a compromise. On a recent build, I had 28mm Panaracer Paselas that measured at 25.5, and pumped to about 70 lbs they felt stiff and generally unpleasant. Caveat here is I ride a lot of 32mm Paselas. Switching to 32 GravelKing slicks that come in at 30-31 and weighed in at 275 grams was so much nicer. I have some other 25 and 26s in my stash, but don’t know when or if I would ever use them.

My first consideration is usually to fit the widest tires possible on a given frame. Sometimes that’s 28mm, sometimes, 30 or 32mm, often times wider. The second consideration is the quality of the tire. A 32mm Rene Herse tire rides far better than a 38mm Gatorskin or the like. Wider isn’t always better. The bikes I ride the most have 700c x 38mm Rene Herse tires.

Maybe true, but this is widely disputed, for example by all the pro teams who now ride on much fatter tires than just a few years ago. Are the pro teams all wrong? (and are they not riding "true" racing bikes anymore??) Could be, I'm not qualified to judge. But there's a lot of money to be made if you're faster, and pro teams are not (all) stupid.

I run 700x35 or 700x38 on my main rides, which see mostly paved back roads with a good share of rail trails thrown in, and some gravel and hard pack, but not too much. They seem to handle the highly variable surfaces well, and I rarely experience flats. The ride is pretty comfortable, too. YMMV. I am a recreational rider, not trying to burn speed or watch every ounce of weight on the bike.

I'm with you --- 23s @120PSI. I only stepped up from 20s because of availability. It looks like 23s might be getting rare.

“What’s your Favorite size?” Riders who prefer 20-25mm tires make that known. Many (not all) riders who prefer wider tires claim that wider tires are what “we” should all be riding because ________, ________, and _________. ✌️

OK: here goes: "We” should all be riding reasonably sized tires (23-28mm) on the road because larger tires are heavy, non-aero, and have high rolling resistance. Add one more: when travelling with the fast crowd, they make you: uncompetitive.

What do you when the fast crowd rides on wider tires?

The narrowest tires I own are 33’s. All in tubulars.

35’s are the narrowest clinchers I currently use. And that’s really only because my touring & townie bikes can’t fit wider with fenders. I guess that’s my default favorite width for pavement now. Could be the comfort and quality of Rene Herse tires and TPU tubes, but I don’t see any reason to go narrower.

27x1.25 is probably the narrowest I’ve ridden in the last decade.

I’m fully bought into Jan Heine’s writing on the subject in the “All Road Bike Revolution” book. Comfort can be fast. I placed in the top 10 in races last summer on 47’s. And I’m no seasoned race dawg either.

My commuter and one other bike is 25.
All others at 23mm.
These are all road use.
I have no real complaints, but want to try 28 just to compare. I think my commuter can handle it.
Still running tubes on all.

So Pogačar, whose tires were over 32 mm wide in the most recent TdF, was somehow "uncompetitive" despite his decisive win? The tires were called 30 on the label but were measured as over 2 mm wider than that by BikeRadar. Here's the quote from the linked article:
"we measured the 30c Conti GP5000 STR tyres on Pogačar’s V4Rs at 33.3 and 32.5m wide, front and rear, mounted on a 32mm-wide ENVE SES 4.5 wheelset."

Any theories as to why such a light skinny guy would ride such slow, heavy, non-aero tires, and win anyway?

And if Pogačar (or his team) determined that's the best width for him, then I feel pretty good about my non-scientific, seat o' the pants conclusion that 38 or 40 is the fastest tire for me at my <ahem> slightly heavier build and lower airpseed.

This year of course, stupid UCI regulations are requiring narrower tires, but it seems to me that the evidence points to wider being faster, with the return to 28 mm tires being a rules-compliance choice, not based on science. Those of us who don't need to be UCI-compliant can ride the objectively better tires.

But please note that Pogačar's tires for 2026, despite being labeled as 28s, actually measure over 31 mm, according to BikeRadar.

C&V riders should keep riding 19 to 21 mm tires on their vintage bikes or whatever they were made for, if being period-correct is most important to them. But if "faster" is the main goal, and if you believe the pro teams aren't stupid, then consider something more modern.

To be fair, I should mention that part of the reason pros are using wider tires might be indirectly because of another UCI regulation, namely the minimum bike weight. Pogačar's bike came in slightly under the minimum weight, so they need to fatten it up a little to be legal. That takes away any incentive to minimize the weight of the tires. But they would still have a strong incentive to minimize RR and wind drag. So it seems to me, this is still evidence that Pogačar's fatties can't be all that slow. I'm not saying it's proved, but I think it's fair to say it's solid evidence that can't simply be overlooked.

What's your theory for why the pro teams are wrong?

But Bulgie, this is C&V; we ride whatever Eddy would have chosen.

IIRC, you own or owned a Softride bike with the saddle suspended out on a long Fiberglas strut and once posted that you were faster on that than on most of your other bikes. That would be effectively the same as riding a road bike with fat-bike-width tires.

That was the era of lightness uber alles. Tires for racing bikes were narrow and were therefore run at high pressure.

They were also tubulars, which because of their construction are generally more shock absorptive than clinchers/wired-on tires of the same width.

In the pre-Merckx era, when most road races were marathon affairs on dirt and gravel roads, the tires the pros rode on were considerably wider and were ridden at much lower pressures.

Here's an older BikeForums thread that spells some of this out.

Having started racing in mid-'60's myself, it took quite a while for me to accept that wider tires are no slower than narrower. But racing results don't lie.

Or do they? Waiting for someone to respond to Bulgie's "So how is it that Pogacar has been winning Grand Tours on 33-mm tubulars?" question with "If he's winning on 33-mm tires, it's prima facie because he's using better dope than anyone else."

Maybe but not how I look at it. When you ride a Softride you have to really focus on smooth spinning of true circles or you will bounce a bit. There's always a feeling in your legs that they are a bit more engaged. Not sure how to really explain it. I have always believed that it was the the way you have to perfect your spin on the Softride there truly contributed to it's higher speed. But hey, who knows, you could be right. But I would then expect the same to translate over to the bikes I have run the fatter tires on, yet my own logs say different.

Maybe this year if I ever get cleared to ride again I will try fatter tires on something again and see what happens. I think the Rickert might have clearance for a bit more.

It is strange that the smooth ride on my Softride was always appreciated while on it. Yet not "appreciated" on other bikes the times I've tried fat tires. Maybe I'm a hypocrite?

Or maybe that's one of the reasons I hardly took the Softride out despite how fast it was, it lacked the overall feel I enjoy. Who knows? Never really thought about it much. Checking Strava I only show 109 miles on it. So I only took it out on a few fast rides over all the years I had it. It was obviously not a preferred ride. In comparison I show 378 miles on the Krapf bike. That was built up and used after my knee replacements and before getting pulled back off the bikes last summer. So not all that many actual miles ridden during the time period compared to probably around 15,000 miles put in the years I had the Softride.

In fact, the Krapf is a bit of an enigma to me. It can only fit up to its current 23mm tires and I had to remove the adjustment screws in the rear dropouts to allow that. Plus it has those super short chain stays that required the seat tube being crimped for tire clearance. I truly expected it to a a harsh ride on the ride. Yet, it's now a current favorite and to me feels super smooth and yet responsive when I ride it. I guess for me there's a line of enjoyment where a bike goes from feeling fast and smooth to just dull. Now dull may be faster but I honestly don't care. If dull doesn't get my juices flowing and doesn't make me want to ride the bike what good is it to me?

Anyway, my early morning ramblings on how I see this. Not sure if they really make any sense but there they are.

Well, I'll be that guy, in a way!

I love Tadej and love watching him race. But no way do I believe he's that dominant and clean. Sorry, not sorry, but I have been burned WAY TOO MANY times in the past to think otherwise. I mean come on. Not even considering what tires are being run in the Peloton.

I hope I'm wrong but in the case I'm pretty sure time will prove me right. History loves to repeat itself.

Eddy was before my time, I"m going with Greg, LOL!

This is an interesting nugget I haven't seen before. My experience with the current GP 5000 clinchers is how they are undersized as labeled compared to the way the GP 4000s II's were oversized. So curious, is this the norm for the tubeless versions or just something custom done for the race teams. Or maybe it's all tied to wider wheels widths? I mean I've never even owned wheels that were 32mm wide for any of my road bikes.

I'm mostly on 25's and that's the max on most of my bikes, having veered away from 23's. OK, and I have one bike on 28's and there's room for more. If the Conti GP5000 in 30mm came in cream sidewall instead of black only, I'd be willing to try a set.

Hope springs eternal. I'm hoping that all the top guys aren't doping. Tadej and Jonas are said to have VO2 max numbers that are among the highest ever recorded.

Along with Lemond. I first came across his name in a U.S. bike racing magazine where it was mentioned that he'd won some big-deal criterium race (Tour of Carson City, maybe) against some high-profile nationally ranked guys when he was a 17-year-old junior. IIRC, he lapped the field on the way to his win.

He and Pogacar and Vingegaard clearly picked their parents carefully.

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.

Probably worthy of a different thread in a different BF forum than C&V, but I’m either really naïve or just believe that current cycling is relegated to “doping” and multiplying other advantages within certain permitted restrictions,

From the Atlantic, 7/25/25:

Science Is Winning the Tour de France

Back on subject, I’d really encourage everyone to read Heine’s book that I mentioned above. I lack the ability to repeat verbatim information about hysteretic and suspension loss in tires, but that dude doesn’t seem to traffic in conjecture and his testing methodology and explanations seem valid enough to me.

And, even more back to the question originally posed: perhaps some people like rumbling themselves numb on 200psi rubber bands and others on 30psi clouds. I guess that makes either the “favorite” for that person whether it’s the most efficient or not.

My favorite size is still “comfortable for the bike and anticipated conditions.”

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. .

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.

I've recently installed 28mm tires and tpu tubes @ 90psi on a couple bikes. Pretty nice but not enough to do any others. But I've never ridden any clincher at over 100psi so ....

Pogacar did switch to 28mm on the time trial stage. So rotating weight and aerodynamic frontal area still matter when you don't have team riders pulling in front of you.

Also, I suspect part of the reason why they switched to wider tires, is because of the mass adoption of tubeless. Tubeless simply does not seal well at high pressures. Hence wider tires which run lower pressures.