Just mounted some 30mm tyres on some 19.4mm (internal) rims and they look a bit wide. I'm under 60kg so wondering if I'm better off with narrower tyres for my weight?
I'm not racing but I do like pushing hard at times and racing with friends on some segments.
Check the size printed on the rim, it’ll be something like 622-17 or 622-20 or similar. The 17/20/whatever is the internal wall measurement, you can then use tyres up to 2.5 times that size for most makes of rim, some can use up to 3 times that size, so a 17 can go up to 42mm usually, and possibly up to 51mm.
The lighter the rider, the lower the pressure OR the narrower tyre you can get away with...
A 30mm tyre is probably a touch wider than ideal aerodynamically for a 19.4mm internal rim width. At your weight, you could run 25's without problems (even tubeless on a hookless rim), though 28's might be a better compromise.
I know a few people who've stepped up to 30's and found they take too much out of the ride (if that makes sense?)... The loss of feel and interaction with the road has taken more away from the experience that the extra comfort has added.
I'm over 90kg but have found 28's the best compromise for me personally. But then if I was riding cobbled roads I wouldn't hesitate to go bigger, and see no reason to drop down to 25's again.
I'm 60kg and settled on 32s, to be fair I'm not a proper road rider and it'll definitely depend on your actual roads but for me it was definitely the best I ever had on it
I had to downsize once. 28s barely skimmed through my caliper brakes, and was almost rubbing on my forks or stays.
Skinny tyres are not for me. Sold the bike, bought one with discs, it came with 28s but I am going 32 next time.
My wife is riding 32s and enjoyed the comfort on coast to coast and won't go back.
I don't suppose many of the World Tour Pros are much over 60kg and a lot of them are on 30 or 32 these days.
Similar weight to the OP, I was running GP5000 25s. Was very pleased with them on the road bike. Circa 65/70 psi IIRC.
I had GP5000 28s on the gravel bike for a time, they worked very well too albeit at a lower pressure. I used that bike on rough/potholed roads and gravel paths with no issue.
On my gravel bike, I now find the new 40c gravel tyres a bit to jarring/bouncy at road pressures (to get the right amount of sag vs drag). Based on that alone, I wouldn't assume wider is always better (but they are a different sort of tyre, granted).
I downsized to a 23mm GP5000 on the front, with a 17mm rim at the time (Hunt Aero Disc Light), ~4 years ago. Kept a 32mm on the rear for comfort. Felt quicker, no loss of comfort on the bars at ~92PSI (I was ~80Kg at the time), no grip dramas but then I don't often ride on wet roads.
I run 30c on open pros and whilst not the most aerodynamic, they aren’t bad - designed for 23c for perfect aeros. I also have 25c on the same rims on the fixed Road bike and am thinking 28c is the sweet spot for comfort/aero on these classic narrow rims. Pressure set by width - 5/5.5/6 bar. The widest I run is 33c gravel tyres. You can run wider but that’s fine for my modest off road exploits on that bike. I’m 73 kg.
I also run 23c on the HED Jet6/9 race bike and 21c (gasp!) on old HED 3 on the trike. That is seriously aero and rock hard.
Interesting to hear different experiences. This is for a gravel bike with 2 sets of wheels. For mixed road/gravel I've been using 35mm Schwalbe G One RS on 23mm (id) rims and found them pretty good but want to go for 40s now I have another set of wheels specifically for road tyres.
I'm torn between leaving the 30s on or going for the same tyre in 28. I guess all I can do is try. Also, I'm running the 30s at 60/55 psi which is quite high for my weight. When I lowered the pressure they felt quite a bit slower but obviously more comfortable.
We used to go for lighter wheels for acceleration. And now everyone wants 40c tyres. I find this ironic as wheels were the first place to save weight 🤣. For road I don’t see that wider than 30c is needed and we have terrible Surrey lanes. Off road I’m happy with 33c at about 3.5-4 bar. Wheels are identical build with different cassettes. Rim brakes. Bike is sub 8 kilos for road and a little more for gravel.
Interesting to hear different experiences. This is for a gravel bike with 2 sets of wheels. For mixed road/gravel I've been using 35mm Schwalbe G One RS on 23mm (id) rims and found them pretty good but want to go for 40s now I have another set of wheels specifically for road tyres.
I'm torn between leaving the 30s on or going for the same tyre in 28. I guess all I can do is try. Also, I'm running the 30s at 60/55 psi which is quite high for my weight. When I lowered the pressure they felt quite a bit slower but obviously more comfortable.
Another consideration - wider rims increase the total air volume in the tyre, exacerbating the problem if the tyre is a bit too wide for your needs.
A wider rim can be like going up a tyre size - just experienced that on the MTB with a new wheel set. Had to drop the tyre pressure a tad.
My P1800s have an inner width of 20mm for reference.
We used to go for lighter wheels for acceleration. And now everyone wants 40c tyres. I find this ironic as wheels were the first place to save weight 🤣. For road I don’t see that wider than 30c is needed and we have terrible Surrey lanes. Off road I’m happy with 33c at about 3.5-4 bar. Wheels are identical build with different cassettes. Rim brakes. Bike is sub 8 kilos for road and a little more for gravel.
I suppose we're all differently built, doing different flavours of road riding and riding different surfaces, so what works for you might not suit everyone or vice versa. But one thing tyres have to do on a road bike is actually as the primary form of suspension and keep riding sustainable. I have terrible Hampshire/Berkshire/SOxen roads to contend with...
I've been rolling about on 40c road tyres on an aluminium framed bike (really a gravel bike dressed up for "road endurance") for almost 2 months now and Vs the carbon and 25c (relative) whippet it replaced, it is soooo much more comfortable, I like sticking to the less busy roads and taking longer routes, but the trade off for that is that it often involves picking the very worst road surfaces in the area. So yeah, essentially what I've got now is more like a "fast gravel bike" except I've got another wheelset with knobbly tyres for actual gravel...
I've got no pretensions that I'm fast, that an aero rim/tyre combo will flatter my averages, or that my VAM is anyone's envy so I might as well take the ~200g hit (Vs a pair of 30/32c) and have a bit of comfort. And I don't actually appear to be noticeably faster or slower now either, but I'm more comfortable for longer, which was the main goal
TBH I don't think it makes much odds once you get over ~32c (rider weight may well be a factor, I'm 85kg currently so the tyre girth has more to damp out with me than others perhaps), I may well try a narrower tyre once these are shagged out just to see. But I'm definitely going up from the 28c on my winter bike next, 32c is a minimum (for me) now. Weight and aero are not such a worry, but if I'm getting neck& shoulder pain after 50 miles then the front tyre is definitely not delivering a pretty key function...
A 30mm tyre is probably a touch wider than ideal aerodynamically for a 19.4mm internal rim width. At your weight, you could run 25's without problems (even tubeless on a hookless rim), though 28's might be a better compromise.
I know a few people who've stepped up to 30's and found they take too much out of the ride (if that makes sense?)... The loss of feel and interaction with the road has taken more away from the experience that the extra comfort has added.
I'm over 90kg but have found 28's the best compromise for me personally. But then if I was riding cobbled roads I wouldn't hesitate to go bigger, and see no reason to drop down to 25's again.
Aerodynamics of a 30 vs 25/28 tyre is irrelevant to anyone outside the World Tour, especially as OP said they don't race.
I have 3 road bikes (varying ages...), one with 25's, one with 28's and one with 32's. The one with 25's is noticeable less comfy to ride (but to be fair it's likely a stiffer frame than the other two so not a fair comparison), unfortunately it won't fit more than 25's.
I actually wanted 34's on my new bike (it can take up to 40's) but the shop couldn't get them in time for me collecting the bike so I went with 32's. From what I've read 34 seems to be the sweet spot where weight and dulling the ride start to over take the benefits of reduced rolling resistance and grip of wider tyres (although I appreciate personal preference comes into it to, regarding ride feel at least). I like the 32's (and being 92kg also means I can run 60-65psi so it makes tubeless viable) but can't say they're noticeably more comfy than the 28's, hard to judge the grip to as I'm not at the point I want to risk crashing on the new bike by pushing it cornering, it seems pretty grippy though. I'll almost certainly try 34 or 35's next time though as for my riding comfort is the primary concern (but not to the extent I'd be happy with a dull/lethargic ride hence I think 40's might be a step too far). That also probably depends a bit on the bike itself, a more relaxed geo with longer chainstays etc. is going to feel pretty dull to ride in the first place (e.g. a gravel bike with road tyres on), sticking wide tyres on it is just going to make it feel even duller - whereas with a twitchy race geo bike it might still ride quite sprightly.
Tried 32mm, back to 28mm now. I prefer the more nimble feeling on my road bike.
When I lowered the pressure they felt quite a bit slower but obviously more comfortable.
It felt slower but was it actually?
Pogacar races 30mm tyres (that measure 32-33mm on Enve rims) if they're good enough for him then they're good enough for me.
But are Pog's 30c tyres the same as those you buy in the shops? Thinner? Lighter? Pros won't be giving up on speed and acceleration, and there is always a bike change for those punctures! Same for the Enve rims.
Having ridden every GP5000 up to 30c on various wheels and bikes (titanium, steel and carbon), I think I've come down to the 28c being the sweet spot for general riding on my bikes for all but racing (23c on wide rims). I don't ride tubeless, so the tyres are more supple than the tubeless ready versions.
I've two old steel bikes with 25c's on - one may take 28c, but one is very tight on frame clearance. The CX bike rolls on 38c gravel or 28c road tyres. All bikes take the 'old skool' narrow rims though. I don't notice alot of difference, as the steel bikes are like magic carpets compared to the alloy/carbon CX bike. Probably notice more if I had an all carbon bike and differing tyres.
My new bike has 32mm WTB Expanse tyres, which are actually quite knobbly. On 32mm deep, 21mm internal carbon rims.
I wanted to swap them for ~28mm tyres because all the magazines say that's what's fastest.
If they are slower than the old 25mm on alloy rims then it's so marginal I can't see it in my average speeds. The bike feels heavier, but it is (disk brakes, less racy frame, proper mudguards). And last week I actually managed to hang onto a faster group than normal on the pub ride (maybe the slightly more aero rims on the straights, maybe the massively more confident cornering meaning less braking and sprinting in the more technical lanes).
Pressure seems to be more critical with big tyres, going slightly lower than the Silca calculator recommended (55 Vs 60psi) made a massive difference to how comfortable they were. And remember there's no real-world* benefit to big tyres unless you run them at correspondingly low pressures. If you're taking the aero and weight penalty you may as well get the smooth rolling !
*yes in the lab a 32mm tyre at 90psi has lower rolling resistance.
For the OP's weight an riding style 28mm sound like they may be the best option. I have done lots of long audax rides on 25mm and have upsized to 30mm but that was more to do with puncture resistance when hitting potholes than comfort. I weigh North of 100kg.
But are Pog's 30c tyres the same as those you buy in the shops? Thinner? Lighter? Pros won't be giving up on speed and acceleration, and there is always a bike change for those punctures! Same for the Enve rims.
Yep. He swaps between GP5000 and GP TT (which comes in a max size of 28mm but measures quite a bit bigger than a 28mm GP5000).
Nobody is going to be riding the Surrey lanes on 28c GP TTs! You might buy them, but without a team car and spare bike, you won't be riding them. I raced tubeless Corsa Speeds for a couple of seasons. Without doubt the fastest tyres I have ever ridden - in 23c on wide rims, they were comfortable. Fast until the puncture fails to seal. Then you are stuck and can't remove them. TT's are the same. I'd race a closed circuit on them but I would not even ride to the circuit from home!
Yep. He swaps between GP5000 and GP TT (which comes in a max size of 28mm but measures quite a bit bigger than a 28mm GP5000).
I suppose the follow-up question would be do you want to compromise on comfort Vs the fastest racer in the world, or 'speed'.
Somehow being less comfortable than the pro racers whilst on a far more sedate ride seems quite perverse!
The loss of feel and interaction with the road has taken more away from the experience that the extra comfort has added.
I think that in a decades time when 23c tyres are out of production we'll look back on them with the same sort of incredulity as we do the idea that in the 2000's the solution to improving the handling of a bike with 71deg angles for more gnarly trails was to buy a size smaller and make it 'chucklable'.
I wanted to swap them for ~28mm tyres because all the magazines say that's what's fastest
They do? Tyre 'speed' is difficult to measure (especially when comparing tyres) as includes rolling resistance (which in itself is linked to tyre pressure) and aerodynamics but the former is terrain dependent and the latter condition/yaw angle dependent (and also tyre/rim interface but that's more controllable). I'm dubious if there is a measureable speed difference between 28's and 32's in most conditions and if there was it would come down to single figure watts (so imperceptible to the average rider).
Most advice I see these days is for a general rider then 30-34 is the sweet spot, narrower than that and you're trading comfort for very little (if any) performance improvement (outside riding in a velodrome at least) and they'll be slower in many 'normal' conditions, wider than that and weight & handling starts to be more of a factor (wider will be best for some riders but not others).
30 years ago I was TTing on 19mm tyres @ 120psi as that was supposedly the fastest (but based entirely on assumptions rather than science), how times have changed...
I think that in a decades time when 23c tyres are out of production
We've lost 21c (I run 3x GP4000s on the trike HED3s), but I am less convinced about 23c. These are standard width for original 15mm internal width wheels, and the clinchers are used on velodrome bikes that don't run tubulars. And smooth non-UK roads too! We have not lost those Open Pro rims yet, but there are more options for wider rims and hence aero options are possible with 28c tyres. A 19c tub on a narrow rim will always be the MOST aero option, but comfort and poor surfaces mitigate those aero gains up to an extent. Classic optimisation and 25-28c is probably optimal for speed balancing aero/comfort/rolling resistance.
I do like the feel of the non-tubeless 30c GP5000s, but will not go wider on Open Pro narrow rims.
Nobody is going to be riding the Surrey lanes on 28c GP TTs! You might buy them, but without a team car and spare bike, you won't be riding them. I raced tubeless Corsa Speeds for a couple of seasons. Without doubt the fastest tyres I have ever ridden - in 23c on wide rims, they were comfortable. Fast until the puncture fails to seal. Then you are stuck and can't remove them. TT's are the same. I'd race a closed circuit on them but I would not even ride to the circuit from home!
I rode a pair of GP TTs all last season (April to November) on my summer road bike and had precisely zero punctures in 3000+ miles. This is on Oxfordshire/Northamptonshire lanes - I'm sure they're not that different to Surrey lanes? There's a thread on weight weenies forum, plenty of folks use GPTTs every day.
Not that it actually has anything to do with the original point anyway. A 28mm GP TT measures exactly 30mm on my 22.4mm rims at 50psi, so Pogacar is never riding anything less than 30mm tyre on his road bike. He could presumably use a 29mm Aero 111 if he wanted to, or he could just ride an older narrower Enve rim with a narrow tyre, but he never has...
I had 32mm previously - I think they were Vittoria Rubino pros (maybe). When they died I decided to go back down to 30mm in Goodyear Eagle Sports (mostly to save a bit of money!) and I *think* I prefer those. I know they probably aren't faster, but they feel faster or something. Saying that, I don't think Iw ould go lower than 28mm now that larger sizes are more widely available. 23 or 25 feel quite wooden and uncomfy for me.
The points about tyres feeling slower or less 'feel and interaction with the road' are why 19 or 21mm was common going back a while, they felt faster because of feedback that takes a bit of energy/momentum out of the system. The fastest road bike I had for 100 milers on typical UK roads and lanes was 650B x 42mm, it felt a lot smoother and was fast overall. But it felt cushy more than fast. I do think wider tyres start to feel a bit 'soft' and like you're on less of an edge when cornering, less precise somehow, less like what I want a road bike to be.
My main long road ride bike has 28mm tyres on 19mm rims, quick and comfy enough for reasonable distances though I'd go bigger for a really long ride. 75kg rider, a bit under 60psi these days. I expect the ideal for me would be 700 x 32s on a wider rim, maybe a 21mm. Would be good to try a 34 also.
I ride 25s on old-school rims a lot still, quite like them at 70psi for short sharp rides.
I'm not sure what to make of the 700 x 40s that are coming out. My experience on 650 x 42 says they'll be great but also I'm not sure if a 700 rim needs a tyre quite that big. Certainly more all-road than road-race, unless the race is the TransContinental.
The 'tyres looking a bit wide and being un-aero' thing is probably not much of an issue for non-racing folk. There's not a huge amount of data for normal punter speeds on aerodynamics, but from memory you're lookng at 5ish watts at 35kph for a fairly extreme cases. I'm not saying there won't be a difference at punter speeds with moderate width discrepancies but I doubt it's somewhere that's worth directing your attention to.
I think I fall into the same category as the OP as I don't race but do like to ride fast sometimes. So for me, feeling fast is important and whether I catually go faster or not is secondary. Personally, I like the feeling of 32mm tyres on my local roads as I feel like I'm gliding effortlessly over them. I can totally get why someone might prefer the ziniger feel of a narrower tyre but for me smooth is fast and fast is fun.
There's a thread on weight weenies forum, plenty of folks use GPTTs every day.
Did they mention that they are heavier than the non-tubeless 25c with TPU tubes? I have these on wide carbon rims and they ride very well indeed. Not as cushy as the 30c's though. You may have guessed that I'm no longer a fan of road tubeless 🤣 . I am a fan of team cars and spare bikes.
We have not lost those Open Pro rims yet,
No, but I suspect they sell several orders of magnitude less of the new ones than they did the originals.
Mavic almost went bankrupt a few years ago!
I do think wider tyres start to feel a bit 'soft' and like you're on less of an edge whencornering, less precise somehow, less like what I want a road bike to be
I agree, I used to argue that my CAAD4 was like a Caterham 7, no one is arguing that a Ford Mondeo ST220 is more comfortable, just as quick in the real world and has <del> pannier mounts </del> a towbar, but the Cannondale / 7 was the tool for the job of having fun.
But I can definitely corner quicker on the Colibri Ti. Maybe it's just the added frame/fork/wheel stiffness. Maybe bigger tyres just help it feel more planted and less on edge. Maybe it is actually extra grip from wider tyres. Whichever it is, the end result is I can just keep putting the power down consistently round the corner and waste less energy sprinting out of them to keep up.
The fastest road bike I had for 100 milers on typical UK roads and lanes was 650B x 42mm
Definitely something that needs a comeback.
Aero is a bit like weightweenie-ing. Nothing is lighter than nothing. Chop 50mm off the rims diameter and it's instantly more aero. Probably less susceptible to crosswinds too as it's shorter front to back so there's another win as for the same weight, and the same stability in a crosswind you can run deeper and even more aero rims.
Aero is a bit like weightweenie-ing. Nothing is lighter than nothing. Chop 50mm off the rims diameter and it's instantly more aero.
Hmmm, not totally sure that's how aerodynamics work, but OK you would potentially reduce frontal area a smidge. I still don't reckon most punters would notice a jot of difference, especially as most aren't moving through the air at anything like wind tunnel test speeds.
I guess the thing is comfort is one of those less tangible things, harder to measure than Watts applied in Vs HR Vs speed and so on, comfort only really yields benefits after sevel hours and through something you specifically don't feel (shock and vibration).
In much the same way you can't "see aero" you can't actually "feel speed" (in fact it's sort of the opposite).
This thread is interesting, there's lots of assertions being made WRT what is optimal setup for general punters riding about on the knackered road surfaces of blighty based on a mixture of sources and intuition, but very little test and measurement...
Pipe down with that small wheeled talk, you never know where you’ll end up if you go down that road!
I just fit some 28s on the road wheels to see how it goes. 60psi on the back and 55psi on the front. Also just fit some 40s to the gravel wheels for more exploring duties with mixed road/gravel.
Hmmm, not totally sure that's how aerodynamics work, but OK you would potentially reduce frontal area a smidge. I still don't reckon most punters would notice a jot of difference, especially as most aren't moving through the air at anything like wind tunnel test speeds.
drag = Cd * A * V^2 * (rho)/2
If you drop from a 700x32mm front area to 650x32 the drag from the wheel drag drops by ~7-8% due to the reduction in area. It's not exactly proportional because you're going to change Cd as well as you're not just scaling the wheel. But I would hazard that it actually drops more because (if you kept the rim profile constant) you're getting rid of the spoke length (and possibly number as the wheel is inherently stronger) and the flat sided top and bottom of the wheel where the biggest aero gains are is proportionality more of the wheel.
Some of that will be offset by the headtube needing to be 50mm longer, but then the downtube also has correspondingly lower frontal area and is less angled, both of which will lower it's drag.
90kg and 30mm GP5000 on latex tubes @ 72.5psi here. (well, in theory, I don't pretend I can distinguish +/- 0.5psi on my track pump THAT accurately).
They're 'new' Continental sizing, so 30mm actually measures very slightly under 30mm wide, unlike the old 28mm GP4000s I had which measured something more like 32mm... 🙄
I can't quantify any difference because my own weight and fitness fluctuates enough that I can't really compare PBs on Strava very accurately, but I do know I'm finding the sweetspot on the bike where everything sort of 'sings' along the road a lot more often (similar to a well lubed drivetrain or when you pick up a tiny bit of a tailwind) which I guess is due to lower rolling resistance over the bumps.
I'm still on relatively old school Fulcrum Racing 3s though which I think are 25mm deep and 17mm internal, I would like to go wider (as much as rim brakes allow) and slightly deeper, I feel the bike really deserves a wide/shallow carbon wheel for the sort of punch roads around me.
I downsized to 28s from 32s because that was what I had to hand at the time. No real difference as far as I can tell and I weigh well over 100kg.
Road bike 1-25c and rim brakes.
Road bike 2- 32c and disks.
I'm the same speed on both but the 25c bike feels faster. But also more bumpy
My bike is 28mm GP5000’s
Mrs FD is 32mm some Giant own brand tyres.
Her bike roles faster than mine
Could be the tyres, could be aero ?
I had 42s increased from 28 over the years, but they're a stretch too far for my Tripster v1 with mudguards. Back to 32s and don't notice a lot of difference,but am on the hunt for some 37/38s as a compromise (nudge nudge wink wink).
I've never understood how a bike can feel faster and be slower at the same time. When I feel faster I am faster according to my times. I can't think of a time where I've felt faster and been slower.