'Upgrading' to skinny tyres pointless for London commuting

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Still waiting for the pro peloton riders to realise the error of their ways, and start running 700x30 tyres…

I would go for 'granddad' personally.

I think he'd have liked you; though you may have found him a tad serious, and lacking in quantities of mirth.

You were obviously right in the spelling. How remiss of me.

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I just want a fucking argument. I don't care about the spelling. Fuck you. And N***.

Nero*, tends not to mind people calling his name in vain. If Jesus doesn't why should Nero.........he asks himself.

*Need to defuse keg of powder for blunderbusses.

Nero? I knew this was a black thing.

MrHotPink, did you know that the last famous tale that included a blunderbuss, was written by Robert Louis Stevenson? I know you read it.

Still waiting for the pro peloton riders to realise the error of their ways, and start running 700x30 tyres…

Some were using 30mm wide tubulars yesterday.

The dominance of aero at pro peloton speeds means we won't be seeing 30mm tyres outside the spring classics, but tyres have got wider in the past few years as the benefits have been analysed by the new-school directeurs sportifs, who are less bound by tradition than their predecessors.

Boonen was on ~28s, and he's a fairly big unit, but like you said, that's the Spring Classics, and the worst of them as far as road surfaces go. London's transport infrastructure is pretty fucked, but it's hardly pavé.

I might consider the cushy ride of that sort of thing if most of my riding was from the luxurious position of someone soft-pedalling @30mph in the vacuum of the bunch. When I've done undulating chaingangs back to back on 23s v28s, it was definitely harder going with the latter. A case of hanging on rather than driving the line.

On the wider subject of tyres (rather than the subject of wider tyres), based on some other current trends, might it be advantageous to run a cheaper/harder compound tyre on the back i.e. your usual favourite on the front, plus the tyre one or two down the brand hierarchy on the back? Wouldn't this be a much cheaper way of achieving the result supposedly offered by the front/rear-specific combo?

Was Boonen on tubs or clinchers? Was wishing him luck yesterday, what a ride, would have been a shame if a mechanical had scuppered his hard work.

If there aren't any studies, what is it that makes it clear? Superstition, tradition and old wives' tales, presumably.

I dare say you have in your time found a group break off the front, often over a hard bit of road, or the steepest part of a climb and you've had to quickly respond? The acceleration is harder with heavier wheels and tyres. It is noticeably different. I was not told this by an old wife – it's clear through experience and would be difficult to study/test.

I can't quite believe I'm telling you this...

Still waiting for the pro peloton riders to realise the error of their ways, and start running 700x30 tyres…

:)

Some were using 30mm wide tubulars yesterday.

The dominance of aero at pro peloton speeds means we won't be seeing 30mm tyres outside the spring classics, but tyres have got wider in the past few years as the benefits have been analysed by the new-school directeurs sportifs, who are less bound by tradition than their predecessors.

I know Aero is your thing but you seem to ignore the fact most teams no.1 riders in stage races will be sheltered until mountain stages – when they'll want climbing wheels or the 36mm rims, and deeper rims less often.

No-one rides clinchers in P-R or anywhere else except Tony Martin in like one TT, Boonen was on FMB tubs.

On the wider subject of tyres (rather than the subject of wider tyres), based on some other current trends, might it be advantageous to run a cheaper/harder compound tyre on the back i.e. your usual favourite on the front, plus the tyre one or two down the brand hierarchy on the back? Wouldn't this be a much cheaper way of achieving the result supposedly offered by the front/rear-specific combo?

This is Michelins thinking with the new Pro Optimum.

They're 25c training tyres with soft/light front and relatively hard rear (still only about 250g I think). Michelin say they should wear at the same rate as each other.

If anyone from Michelin is reading plz send a test sample too...

No-one rides clinchers in P-R or anywhere else except Tony Martin in like one TT, Boonen was on FMB tubs.

I was misled by eurosports commentator then, who mentioned one team were running 28c continental clinchers.

This is Michelins thinking with the new Pro Optimum.

They're 25c training tyres with soft/light front and relatively hard rear (still only about 250g I think). Michelin say they should wear at the same rate as each other.

But wouldn't it be cheaper to run a Pro Race on the front and a Lithion or something on the rear, with little difference in performance between that and the Pro Optimum combo?

Surely you're best off riding the tyres you like riding on.

A light nippy bike with thin tyres is more fun than a fat heavy beast.... except when caning it around on something you can hop up and down curbs on is better...

Different bikes have different uses. Different people like different bikes. All of them will get you to and from work in roughly the same time.

If you really want to speed up your commute leave earlier. I went to work at 7am a couple of weeks ago and start to finish it took at least 1/3 off.

Also fwiw, when I bought my first bike (Giant Crs 2.0) in london from cycle surgery, the guy told me not to bother with anything "faster" as even with the best will in the world you'll only knock a couple of mins off a commute.

Lesion: cyclesurgery > evans

@ BMMF

Well maybe. I only know about these Optimum things as I was planning buy some 25c Pro Race 3s and they cropped up in a search.

I had some Lithions in 2009 and I thought they were super shit under braking. I don't know if my pair were old or in some way damaged, or whether the compound has since changed. Some people rave about more recent Lithions.

I was misled by eurosports commentator then, who mentioned one team were running 28c continental clinchers.

There's a fantastically nerdy look at wheels/tyres/pressures used yesterday on Velonews and Greenedge had 28mm Contis but they were tubs

But wouldn't it be cheaper to run a Pro Race on the front and a Lithion or something on the rear, with little difference in performance between that and the Pro Optimum combo?

Ask a Commuter ?

"'Upgrading' to skinny tyres pointless for London commuting
"

No. Read the context.

Don't ask a commuter anything. They probably got advice in Evans. Or have just undergone Cyclesurgery.

#snob

No. Read the context.

Don't ask a commuter anything. They probably got advice in Evans. Or have just undergone Cyclesurgery.

#snob

The context is commuting.

No ?

@ BMMF

Well maybe. I only know about these Optimum things as I was planning buy some 25c Pro Race 3s and they cropped up in a search.

I had some Lithions in 2009 and I thought they were super shit under braking. I don't know if my pair were old or in some way damaged, or whether the compound has since changed. Some people rave about more recent Lithions.

I don't know about the 3s, but I've owned Pro 2 Races in both sizes, and the 25 version was like a completely different tyre. Different tread/compound/feel/big weight increase.

Ask a Commuter ?

"'Upgrading' to skinny tyres pointless for London commuting
"

I'd already changed the subject. The OP's issue was solved in the first couple of posts.

The context is commuting.

No ?

Have a look around the page. Can see any other words?

you seem to ignore the fact most teams no.1 riders in stage races

You seem to ignore the fact that GC in stage races is a small part of professional road racing, and for some of us the least interesting since we don't know the result until nearly two years after the event.

If the wheels are designed with big tyres (in the context of road racing, 25mm counts as big) in mind, there is no aero penalty, and no weight penalty since it's easy to build to 6.8kg with big tyres and deep wheels. That's why you now see a lot of 24-25mm tyres in use throughout the year, following a long period when 22mm was the biggest tyre in the bunch and 19-20mm was not unusual - DSs have finally starting believing in science. For most of us it's just a handy by product that you also get better ride and handling from the bigger tyres, but in a 6hr road race you shouldn't underestimate the contribution they also make to overall performance.