I've been thinking a lot about this recently, not for it's application to supple tires per se, but for the inverse: the stiffer the tire, the more you have to be careful about tire pressure in order to optimize rolling resistance. I tend to run stiffer tires (Schwalbe Kojak, Marathon Supreme) on my everyday rigs because I ride through industrial areas with a lot of glass and debris. I know that you get very few flats even with relatively supple tires, Jan, but stiff Schwalbes are what I have arrived at for my purposes.
I used to really love the smooth ride of low pressures, and would run my stiff tires really low, often in the 40-50 psi range for the 35mm Kojaks (I weigh close to 200 lbs fully clothed and am usually 5-10 lbs in a front bag). But after moving to the flat CA central valley and commuting longer distances, I've noticed that they can be kind of a dog. Since my Kojaks are on my Quickbeam (so fixed gear/single speed: https://flic.kr/p/Ett4rD), my perceptions are much more in line with Patrick's: my perceived exertion for a given gear ratio in a given set of conditions. So I've recently been experimenting with higher pressures, in the 55-70psi range for the Kojaks, and they definitely roll better. In the past couple of weeks I've been trying to find a happy medium in the 50-65 psi range. Not sure I've cracked it yet. On the other hand, I recently built up an early 80's Medici Pro Strada (https://flic.kr/p/DQ9YxP) for the Eroica CA ride in April and I splurged on some Grand Bois Cerf EL's for it, and all I can say is that bike feels effing *fast*. Of course, there are a number of things that make it so compared to my daily riders: more aerodynamic (less comfortable) position, lighter weight (more Al components, plus the fact I'm never carrying a commuting load), relatively close-ratio gears well suited to my terrain. But I have been wondering how much is the tires, and if maybe splurging on something like the Bon Jon Passes for the QB is worth it. I downloaded Strava on my phone to try and quantify the difference, but so far it's inconclusive. On Wednesday, March 9, 2016 at 10:25:32 PM UTC-8, Jan Heine wrote: > > One of the most common questions I get asked is what tire pressure is best > for performance and comfort. After years of studying tire performance, the > amazing answer is that tire pressure doesn't matter much... I wrote a piece > on why that is the case, and what it means for every rider as they set up > their bikes: > > https://janheine.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/tire-pressure-take-home/ > > Enjoy! > > Jan Heine > Editor > Bicycle Quarterly > www.bikequarterly.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.
