Bicycle tires also don't have the wide spectrum of weight and power output of vehicles, and picking tires with performance to match is critical. Cycling has a narrower envelope of grip versus wear in which to maneuver, tire makers to produce, buyers to purposely choose from and journalist/designer/enthusiast/raconteurs like Jan to differentiate for our benefit.
Looking back at some heavy-handed attempts to extend one parameter of bike tire performance, the Specialized Turbo Ummagumma compound tires produced in the 1990s rear their carcasses. On several group rides I saw different unsuspecting riders slap the pavement when crossing an intermediate trickle of water (as opposed to an established, algae-supporting one) in the apex of a hairpin switchback. Riding in the mountains you could not avoid that scenario and yet these were OEM tires not some self-inflicted specialty tire choice of those riders. Tread alone was not enough to spare those UG Turbos from the instantaneous loss of any grip in the presence of moisture. Usually you make your choices, ready for the consequences, but that tire was a horrible thing to put on a production bike and into the hands of an average rider of unspecified intents or skills. A cycling friend (rides a Richard Sachs CX on BG Cypres on our urban forays) has a Lotus Elise that requires special tires for even nominal everyday use because it is so light on its wheels that typical tire compounds never warm to their minimum performance parameters and are frighteningly absent of nominal grip. Andy Cheatham Pittsburgh On Tuesday, January 5, 2016 at 11:29:40 AM UTC-5, George Schick wrote: > > Interesting. One additional remark about the tires on racing cars and > motorcycles: They run 'em very hot. That's why you see the cars swerving > from side to side when they're going slow during a yellow caution flag in a > NASCAR race, to keep 'em heated up for when the green flag goes down. The > softer tire compounds heat up more quickly, too. 'Course, this doesn't > usually happen with bicycle tires, given the slower speeds, etc. > > BTW, I seem to recall from the distant cobwebs of my aging cranium an > article about tires and tread that Grant wrote years ago in one of his Riv > Readers, concluding that any tread on a bike tire was more or less > irrelevant due to the small "footprint" of the tire on the riding surface. > I'll have to fish around and see if I can find it, to see what he did in > fact say… > > > On Tuesday, January 5, 2016 at 8:19:06 AM UTC-6, Jan Heine wrote: >> >> Sometimes, it seems that tire tread is just about "design", but there >> actually are real reasons why some tires stick better than others, >> especially in the wet... >> >> https://janheine.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/why-slick-tires-dont-stick-well/ >> >> Jan Heine >> Compass Bicycles Ltd. >> www.compasscycle.com >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
