After returning from a long ride yesterday, I had a sizable chunk of the running tread of my rear wheel ripped out of my rear tire, so I was effectively riding on the casing (ouch). Now, the wheels were my training wheels with ‘light’ tires on it, which came OEM and had ~1k miles on them. Aside from the missing piece, the tire itself was already eaten up pretty good by road debris, if not for the Mr Tuffy’s I would have had quite a few flats during those miles. In comparison, solid non-light, or ‘regular’ training tires I used last year lasted 4-5k miles.
Anybody have an idea why training wheels come with those kind of tires? Doesn’t make sense to me (aside from increasing manufacturer’s revenue) to spec ‘light’ tires on wheels that are not going to be used for racing.
Because smart companies know that most people buy bikes on the feel of the tyres. Generally if a customer is testing 2 (or more) bikes that are roughly equivalent they will buy the one that “feels better” - this difference is usually not going to be the frame (prob from same factory - at least same tubing and geometry) or the wheels (again will be roughly equivalent). It is mostly going to be tyres.
THe most practical tyres to sell on bikes that come with training grade wheels would be Specialized Armadillos, they are slow and heavy and would negatively affect perception of the ride of the bike so no-one does it. Cervelo spec Vittoria Diamante Pro Lights on all their bikes because they have a very nice road feel (in the dry) and give a cervelo an edge when test ridden. Using the same tyre across the entire range also makes it a bit cheaper. Even Sora equipped Meridas come with good tyres for that reason. Giant are making a bit of a mistake in speccing a lot of their range with michelin tractor tyres.
You may also notice that a lot of bikes come with “light” butyl tubes - this is another measure along the same lines. It doesnt matter that light tyres will die within 2k - the bike has been sold.
damn, good reasoning, never really figured it out myself. the Diamonte Pro Lites absolutely suck as a training tire, but they do feel damn fast… Our fault as consumers though as that’s what we look for when test riding a bike, fast feel and how heavy it is:P
It is entirely logical to go with the bike that feels best in testing - you dont want to be doubting your choices. With a TT bike especially you want to choose the one that feels fastest. Knowing what makes the bike feel better than the one next to it is the trick.
A solid set of training tyres are noisy and heavy feeling - which usually leads to a negative perception. I always expect to swap most of the parts off a bike (since I use campag) so dont worry about wheels, tyres etc. If you’re looking at a new bike it’s a good idea to get them to swap the wheels between the bikes you’re testing so you use the same ones on each bike. Or take in your race wheels to determine whether the potential new ride gives you any better feel.
It is very rare for anyone to be so equipment sensitive that they can really tell the difference between frames of similar price (ie at 3k titanium/carbon/alloy will all be very good), it’s better to believe that you can than to think that your several thousand dollar purchase was predominantly determined by a set of $60 tyres (or $10 oem).
You can guess what advice I just gave a local importer about what tyres to spec on his bikes - good ones!