wrote:
Carl Fogel wrote:

Not a reply, just a place to hang this.

Here's a six-column sampler of some clincher pavement/city tread
patterns from some sites mentioned in this thread:

http://i35.tinypic.com/33582mp.jpg

***

The left-hand two columns show impressive grooving.

Deeply grooved patterns often seem to take longer to repeat than any
likely contact patch, suggesting that they are frankly ornamental
and intended to catch the eye, an important consideration when
selling something that might otherwise be described as round and
black.

***

The third column (red sidewalls) shows such patterns combined with
checkering. The top gray and black example has center checkering,
with faint side grooving. The lower red-sidewall example shows a
bare center with faint side grooving superimposed on side
checkering.

The manufacturers apparently disagree about whether the checkering
should be in the center or on the sidewalls. This suggests that at
least one of them is clueless.

***

The fourth column shows blue, yellow, green, and black examples of
center checkering with tiny diagonal grooving on the sides.

This pattern is probably the most common kind of "tread" on pavement
tires.

The center checkering wears off quickly on rear tires, being
scarcely skin deep.

Why the center checkering changes to tiny diagonal side grooves is a
mystery.

It's also not clear which way the tiny diagonal side grooves are
supposed to point.

The colors are pretty, but not likely to be anything except
marketing.

There's a good chance that this tiny checkering and grooving is just
the natural reduction of much larger and earlier tire patterns.

***

The top of the fifth column shows side checkering with a bare
center. Apparently that manufacturer disagreed with the traditional
center checkering and tiny diagonal side grooves. Again, the
disagreement suggests that at least one of the manufacturers is
clueless.

The bottom of the fifth column shows what might be called paint
brush markings. They're straight and not as regular as the popular
tiny diagonal side grooves, which raises doubts--either diagonal or
straight should be better, so at least one pattern is wrong. The
only obvious advantage of the paint-brush-mark pattern is that
there's no question of which way to mount them.

***

The sixth column shows three examples of apparently bare, smooth
tread, with up to five dull stripes. Such tires usually claim to
have a softer, stickier, faster-wearing sidewall and a harder center
stripe. That actually makes sense. Tires with checkering show that
the center wears smooth long before the sidewalls show any wear.

***

Checkering, incidentally, was originally for the hard metal or
wooden handles of edged weapons and firearms. The smooth rubber
surface of a tire can be expected to conform to surface
irregularities as small as checkering, just as the soft flesh of a
hand is expected to conform to the grooving and checkering on this
90-year-old pistol:

http://i35.tinypic.com/1zpjdk2.jpg

The checkering on the wooden side plates is duplicated in miniature
on the spur of the hammer. The vertical grooving on the slide helps
yank the slide back with the thumb and forefinger to chamber a
round.

Again, the point is that a soft, smooth surface material (flesh or
rubber) is usually expected to conform to a harder non-smooth
surface, whether the harder surface is irregular or regular (wood,
metal, or pavement).

If the pavement tire manufacturers have some theory or testing
behind their miniature "patterns" and traction, they disagree wildly
about what patterns work best--deep grooves in ornate patterns,
checkering, tiny grooves, side, center, or paint-brush-marks.

The variety of patterns is, however, consistent with marketing
efforts to differentiate one rubber tire from another. Marketing is
essential (and the cost of adding patterns is trivial) when bicycle
tires sell for ~$50 and thirty or more of them can be made from the
material used in a single $50 car tire.

The same pattern can be seen in bicycle helmets, which are basically
straps attached to foam shells filled with increasing numbers of
holes, covered with a brightly colored hard plastic skin. If the
price tags and logos are removed, the sales clerk has a hell of a
hard time explaining the difference between the $15 and the $150
helmet.

Carl, thanks for assembling and reviewing these tires with appropriate
comments.

translation:

"carl, thanks for writing something that agrees with me, because tire
manufacturers, for reasons i can't be bothered to understand, don't."

http://www.schwalbetires.com/tech_info/tire_tread


Meanwhile true believers still argue here in favor of these
inventions with claims of technical superiority. I find the need for
this assessment a sad commentary on wreck.bike where readers do not
want to believe that the bicycle business has slipped from function
into fashion, among other things, carbon fiber everything and colored
tires with artistic patterns.

total and complete red herring.


Meanwhile, functional equipment is hard
to find while professional racers model these products for the
faithful.

As I said, this year's InterBike had less technical content and
greatly expanded fashion features than last year. I found no hub, rim
or tire shown there that I would like to buy. The market has gotten
to the point that I buy a stash of any good equipment I can find when
it shows its face. For much of this, the last resort is eBay where
unfashionable hardware is being sold off.

you poor old man.