I’ve never understood why people run a skinnier tyre up front, all the road vibration/chatter I feel is through the front. I don’t feel anything through the rear, I might as well be running a 23 in the back, maybe over the years I’ve lost all feeling back there…?
The conventional wisdom is aero. And I misspoke above and forgot… I ran 23mm up front and 25mm in back with my rim brake HED wheels.
It depends a great deal on the roads. With rougher pavement, I would consider running wider in front for sure. But I usually race on pretty good roads.
You forgot the wired cat eye computer…
We just fit a guy that was running 23mm tires. I just laughed in my head when I saw them… it was like looking at a tooth pick.
18 speed Trek… He loved his bike.
I just gave away my original racing bike: a steel Pinarello Montello SLX. I raced on 18mm tires until I went to the more luxurous 19mm tires. I have a picture somewhere of the front tire widths side-by-side of my old Pinarello, my tri bike with 23mm and road bike with (then) 28mm. What a crazy looking range.
Cateye bike computers were for chumps. I had a wired Avocet computer on that Pinarello for most of its life.
Watch what you say. Cateye was a site sponsor ! [ pink ]
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Nice attitude.
I’ve managed to survive quite nicely riding the shitty roads of NJ on my original-to-me 1995 Serotta Ti, whose front fork won’t allow anything wider than a 23mm tire.
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2008-2020 Ironman NZ on 21s which is all that would fit on my bike(s). At least in the latter years I dropped from 120psi.
I did run 23 once year, but had to stop as I went under the expressway to pull out a stone that had jammed the back wheel wedged between tyre and frame.
Which brings back to a wider point. In no way diminishing the need to be detail oriented to get to the podium. But realistically less than 10% of any age group are actually chasing podium. The rest (of us) are competing with ourselves / or even the cut off. And enjoyment is the key for what is a pure hobby.
Looking at all the high traffic posts at the moment it’s this, $2000 aftermarket cockpits (and safety thereof), the need for windtunnel testing to tell if a $200 bottle holder saves us 3W or not. Looking at some posts I fear that we are only 18months away from an internal orifice mounted hydration system to save 1w of aero. Where the heck has the camaraderie of tri competition that was the essence of it gone, where no-one stressed if you got passed on the bike as you could assume you’d see the person as you ran past them later and give them a pat on the back and a quick chat. (or vice versa).
Sorry #goodolddays grumpy man voice for the last para. But I do feel bad reading some of the above comments that are a bit personal, especially when it’s their ‘house’.
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But a 23mm is faster than a 28mm…it may be less comfortable but is faster. Both aero and RR. People are horribly confused about this topic.
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I didn’t know they ever made 650c in 23’s?
That seems unlikely on real road surfaces, unless you are running absurdly low tire pressures in the 23. SRAM’s white paper that covers vibration losses would indicate they are very significant, although the data they show is quite nonspecific and limited. (starts on PG 10)
I’d love to see real vibration loss data vs. various tire sizes of a single tire model vs. road roughness.
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It 100% depends on the road. Smooth roads - not at lot of impedance losses assuming you are running optimized pressures. Gravel or cobbles - lots of impedance losses
As you said, that white paper doesn’t go into enough detail or specifics to draw specific conclusions.
The Zipp white paper used values derived from unpaved roads. When they try to generalize it to paved roads, it’s a load of bogus. The rolling road also has allot of compliance built into it incorrectly. You can see it when the tire rolls over to a new slat, and it sinks down a bit.
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“Often as good, never better, sometimes worse” seems to hit the nail on the head based purely on what I have read so far.
There seems to be broad consensus that 1) the data shows hookless isn’t faster 2) hookless is less flexible 3) hookless has a narrower operating window 4) the potential result of operating outside this window is more serious with hookless.
If this a fair summation (which I honestly believe it is), the only reasonable conclusion is that it is (currently) an inferior technology.
If it is (currently) an inferior technology, to present it as simply a choice for customers is uncomfortable as 1) the customer may not be aware 2) the customer may not have an option to avoid hookless and get the bike they want 3) generally competing technologies exist where they each offer a different set of benefits to the customer, whereas in this case the benefits are unclear.
I assume the technology will continue to develop, but right now, I think we have to call a spade a spade.
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I guess because he thinks most of the pro pelotón is dumb…
My fast wife and I are no pros, we actually pay for bicycle wheels with our own money. A decade ago, Zipp and HED were our branches to buy fast wheels for TT racing. Nowadays it is somehow difficult to purchase HED here in Germany and Zipp / SRAM produced too much fog (this crazy rolling cobbles test rig, the need of secondary effects, calling it impedance losses or comfort gains, to show somehow their newest iteration is even faster) to be trusted by us. On top of that than the swing to tubeless based on questionable claims. Consequently no Zipp wheels any more.
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you might not be aware of that ,but given that you are calling people dumb in this thread , it would be a good idea for you to think what being agressive actually means.
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Or, just telling people to leave if they ask legit questions…
In any event, as it was well said above, sharing this without commentary (forgive me if this is out there somewhere else):
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I had one of the original Cervelo P2’s (650c wheels, sharkfin under the BB, that thing was SWEET). which I sold and regret doing so,
rear tire clearance was so bad, a 21mm tubular would rub. the only thing that I could use were 18mm continental tubulars.
rode my best ever TT’s on that thing. - oh, I had it set up as a 1x with a 56T chainring and a 12-21 cassette. Hills were not its forte.
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