Yes, clearly the answer is going to be different in different scenarios.
So for the purposes of my original question, I'm talking all things equal, straight line speed on a smooth surface, a straight tarmac road for example. Same size tyre, same bike, wheels, rider, position.
Obviously a 24c turbo cotton is not going to be faster than a 1kg knobbly DH tyre down a world cup trail or faster than a 42c gravel tyre on singletrack and less grip of a harder tyre will clearly mean needing to slow down more for corners so I'm talking in terms of velocity rather than lap times.
Likewise for acceleration, real world use case, softer is better for grip and acceleration
Tarmac isn't that smooth, if you look closely at it. Softer compound tyre could conform better to the very small but constant variations in the surface. At a guess.
Then again it would still answer the question more usefully than finding out why harder tyres are actually faster as long as you're riding on train rails
Yes, clearly the answer is going to be different in different scenarios.
So for the purposes of my original question, I'm talking all things equal, straight line speed on a smooth surface, a straight tarmac road for example. Same size tyre, same bike, wheels, rider, position.
Obviously a 24c turbo cotton is not going to be faster than a 1kg knobbly DH tyre down a world cup trail or faster than a 42c gravel tyre on singletrack and less grip of a harder tyre will clearly mean needing to slow down more for corners so I'm talking in terms of velocity rather than lap times.
Likewise for acceleration, real world use case, softer is better for grip and acceleration
But I wanna know about speeeeeed