3 ms·
> Doesn’t a greater surface area touching the floor means more frictional effects when pushing against the road? Good question because at first I thought it mi
by dahart 5y ago
> Doesn’t a greater surface area touching the floor means more frictional effects when pushing against the road?
Good question because at first I thought it might be negligible due to the tire normally being in a state of static friction relative to the road. But some quick searches showed me that rolling resistance is related to how large the contact point is, like you suggest, along with a variety of other factors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_resistance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_resistance
I don’t know how reliable this is, but googling brought me to this site which compares bicycle tire brands according to rolling resistance on their test machine. Apparently, some 25s have all the 23s beat. If true, the variability range for bicycle tires is a lot wider than I expected. https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/ https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/
- Cockbrand 5y agoI've bought a few tire models after researching at bicyclerollingresistance.com, and while I certainly don't have the means to do proper scientific research, I feel like I did buy the right stuff.
- jeffbee 5y agoSame. I don't have any rational basis for it, but I've been happy with my tires. I think the best thing I learned from that site is even slightly larger sizes have a much bigger effect on puncture resistance than better construction.
- nchie 5y agoI love brr.com and have used them a lot, but in the context of this thread, it's important to consider that the surface they test the tires against do not have the kind of imperfections you see on the road. This means lower pressure will always perform worse in their tests, which goes against the more recent consensus in that each road has an optimal pressure depending on its roughness.