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@Lolo
From Grant Petersen:
The biggest, best bargain in bicycles is air in the tires, yet for the last twenty years or so there's been a heinous trend toward tires with lower and lower volumes. This is bad because these skinny tires need to be pumped up to outrageous pressures like 110 to 145 psi just to protect the tubes from pinch flats and the rims from flat spots. Such high pressure tires roll fast on smooth roads, but as soon as the road turns slightly rough or slightly wet, they're uncomfortable and slippery.
The whole idea of hard skinnies is speed, but it doesn't work that way. Speed comes from fitness, not hard & skinny tires.
It's better to ride on higher volume tires that can be ridden at lower, more comfortable, and grippier pressures.
Bigger softer tires are often faster than hard skinnies, anyway. When a hard tire hits a bump in the road, two things happen. First, the bike is jolted upward, slowing its forward progress. Second, you-the-rider are jostled at least to the point of having to recover from the feel of the bump, and maybe even to the point where you lose control. Certainly, if you hit a bump as you're cornering at high speed, the wheel will likely lose the ground, and you'll go down.
With a softer tire it's a different story. Instead of the bike and wheel getting bounced, the larger, softer tire deforms and it smacks the bump (or edge of the pothole), and the tire rolls right over it, continuing its forward motion nearly unimpeded. Around the corner, you maintain traction. You can relax more because, as you ride in and out of the shadows on an unfamiliar road, or at night, you know your tires are there as a buffer for you.