perhaps you're being smart. Aren't you riding gravel these days?

Do tell.

Edit...
OK it helps if I read the question before I look at the answers :-(

Maybe you do gravel triathlons, eh? :-(

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I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

Since there are no new (good tire) options other than dual 23's in 650's, I only have one choice

did you mean "ride in triathlon" as you stated or "race in triathlon," because my answer would be different.

In my case, the dual 23s measure just over 26mm on my race wheels, and just barely clear my brake calipers. A 25 or 26mm tire would most likely rub...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

I would have (perhaps wrongly) assumed that a 27+mm tire would not be a good aero match for any wheel, front or rear? 25mm on super 9, 23mm on front 808, for me...

Something else was my only option. Zipp tangents speed sl tubular 24 mounted on zipp FC404 in front and 27 Mounted on FC808 rear

"did you mean "ride in triathlon" as you stated or "race in triathlon," because my answer would be different."

i no longer believe in the notion of race wheels, at least in triathlon. or to put it another way, i no longer believe in training wheels. everything in my tri bike that i race with i train with. now, i might put a fresh set of rubber on the week of a race, maybe a fresh chain and a cassette, and maybe i'll take those off after the race but if so i'm replacing duplicates.

i'm surprised that you would race 24/26 but train on dual 23s or something. unless you're saying you train on something fatter. that i could see. is that what you're doing?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'd train on dual 25s (or slightly wider if bike would allow but nothing crazy) but narrow is aero for racing. It really depends (a bit) on the context of the rider's bike/equipment/race speed as well. Or which race I'm doing, specifically (i.e. Miami 70.3 vs. CDA 70.3 where it's 26+ mph vs 23ish mph - hypothetically anyway). There's no panacea - in my mind - of tire choice.

"narrow is aero for racing"

what i keep seeing, tho, is rims getting wider, and wider, and wider. and the tire to follow suit, as long as the tire is not wider than the rim.

or is that not the modern thinking?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Best combo of aero and rolling resistance is the way to go, though. Flo's testing showed that on their wheels at least the 23 and 25 gp4000sii were virtually identical in total drag, if I recall correctly.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Modern, but often misguided.

1. Yaw angles are generally <10 deg;

2. the most aero tires/wheels at low yaw angles are generally narrow, not wide (by modern standards);

3. Rolling resistance needs to be considered as well, but there are some narrow tires that roll really well.

The above leads me to chose older, not especially wide wheels, with relatively narrow (by current thinking) tires (e.g., ~20 mm by direct measurement).

Not all of us are on new ENVEs.

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'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

So you ride a disc around all the time? That is pretty Fred.

The 7.8 ses enves are wider at the front than rear, but all the tyre options in the poll are equal or thinner at the rear.

I'm considering either 25f/23r or 23/23 (not sure I can fit 25's on the rear).

Why only wider rears? Crr? A teardrop shape is wider on the leading edge.

Want, have, can purchase at a low cost, and will fit on my frame is one answer vs what is optimal in a perfect world.

Got it. You are saying that most people who ditch their 'narrow' rims for wider ones are been taken for a ride....

3.2...1....BUT

For TT, my choice would be 25mm front and 28mm rear with corresponding wheels optimised to that width and a frame to fit.
But we are only just seeing those products enter the market now, so much better to run narrower at the moment.
If I was a lightweight guy, 23mm front and 25mm rear with current gear is fine.

 
i think he is saying that people need to think more whats best for them , and dont just follow the marketing blurb.
i belive andrew is a 53 or so tter for 40 k and that makes the answer more clear cut for him than lets say a 1.10 40k tter )

for a very light female that feels getting blown around on the bike a wider rim can make a lot of sense.

for a heavier guy narrower wheels and narrower tire is unlikely to be slower overall and at low jaw still faster. (at least for the front wheel)
for the rear wheel it can be different as rolling resitance would be more important . and it also depends on what bike you ride.

  
i am interested in this way of looking at it as well. andrew coggan's answer jives with most of what i've read, and specifically from the perspective of anyone who cares about doing 40k or shorter TTs over 45 km/h.

for me, this is a /totally/ different filter than thinking about long distance tri, apart maybe from the pointy end.

for example, it may well be that the increase in comfort keeps people from sitting up in the pursuit bars which saves them 20 mins. but that is of no interest to the timetrialist.

i think there is some amount of talking past one another between tt'er, triathletes, fast and slow, manufacturers aren't really incentivized to clear this up. what is good for tony martin is not necessarily good for frodo, which is not necessarily good for one's first ironman.

to dan's point, i'm curious about riding race gear training. me, i wanna work hard but go slower training. if i can do equal watts at 5km/h slower training, that's a lot of extra reaction time for me and drivers. but i'm weird, i actually want to buy airhubs.

One thing I don't quite understand is that Enve claims the wider front, narrower rear is the optimal setup. What I can't understand is that if people also use tires that are wider for the rear, say 26mm, they are ballooning out well wider than the rim and thus we are back to the old lightbulb shape which can't be ideal for the trailing wake of. My experience with a brand new, 25mm Conti TT on a HED Rim is that it ballooned out to wider than 30mm.

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For THAT wheel, maybe. You can't take Flo results and apply them to every situation.

So you won't be riding a disc wheel behind and a deep-rim front wheel in Cuba because you don't believe that they're faster? Or conversely, is this equipment sitting on your bike currently and you use them daily?

If so, it must be nice to be able to afford the daily ride on 3-5X the cost of normal training wheels...

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DFL > DNF > DNS

"So you ride a disc around all the time? That is pretty Fred."

yeah. i know. but i either ride a disc and a deep or a pair or deeps. i know it's fred. but i really dislike not knowing what to expect when i'm in a race, like, am i going to get blown off the road bike this wind as i descend this hill?

but then i don't spend that much time on my tri bike. most of my riding is on my road bike, or mtb or something, and then about 6 weeks before my triathlon, or my first triathlon, of the year i pull the tri bike out.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I've advocated this approach basically forever. I'd wear my aero helmet more often if it wasn't for the fact that it's harder to hear. But, with lights on my helmet for TT riding, the extra weight serves as a reasonable proxy for aero helmet.

But tires/wheels/etc are all hugely important. Even things like where you keep your spares. And how you carry bottles. The more you practice how you'll race, the more prepared you'll be on race day.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp