Tyre manufacturers have a rating of weight, compound and size but only a description of how they measure up on rolling resistance/performance. Is there a benchmark rating or a physical equation that can be applied to a tyre compound to achieve this.

blah blah blah

Which has less…..2.25 Racing Ralph or a Conti 2.25 Rubber Queen Black Chilli??

Gotta love the Germans for the appliance of science!

mtbr thread

Here’s some reading for you

http://www.mtbonline.co.za/downloads/Rolling_Resistance_Eng_illustrated.pdf

You would think it could be calculated with a complex equation for smooth hard surfaces.

Thanks for the reading mate, I was thinking in purely 2 dimensional Compound only thinking!!!! Width/Pressure/Surface has just opened a much bigger can of worms 🙁

You would think it could be calculated with a complex equation for smooth hard surfaces.

You could do it with FEA, but as my uni tutor pointed out, at some point the problem becomes so complex and the product so simple and mass produced that it’s cheeper to do real world testing.

take a tyre, take a power meter and i am sure you could come up with something.

My mate rolls 7 yards further – with his new tyres 😕

You could take a sample of the compound and measure temperature increase under repeated compression/flexure (where the force is fixed but not the work) – the greater the amount of heat generated, the higher the rolling resistance. However it’s easier (and more useful) to measure your time taken to roll down the same slope over and over again with different tyres because pattern/pressure matters even more.

Cartridge bearing hubs generally have a greater resistance than (properly maintained) cup & cone hubs

Easy to forget, especially for the Hope aficionados

http://forums.mtbr.com/wheels-tires/tire-test-results-german-bike-magazine-419392.html

Lol, like it matters for chubby IT managers pushing their steeds up gentle inclines…