On 1/22/2019 10:17 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
Here's Jan Heine's latest on wide tire road bikes, or "All-Road Bikes."

https://janheine.wordpress.com/

I guess that link takes you to the most recent edition of his blog, so
when this post gets old you'll probably have to scan downwards.

- Frank Krygowski

Wider tires is something that could help a lot of 'normal' riders, but
running fat(ter) tires also requires running fatter rims for them to
work well--and most people still don't bother with that part.

I've seen online a lot where someone says that they have a bike with
30mm tires and ask if they can put ~45's or whatever on it... -and
everyone else says "yea sure, if the tires will fit in the
frame/fenders". And it's true that it works, but it works lousy. I'm
usually the only one pointing out that you don't get the full benefit of
fatter tires unless you move to wider rims as well.

It goes something like this:
1. The only reason to run fatter tires is to run them at lower
pressures, to absorb road bumps better.
2. But if you get wide tires and mount them on narrow rims, then you
have to keep them inflated to fairly-high pressures to keep them from
squirming and folding over in turns.
3. So if you mount a fat tire on a skinny rim, all you end up with is a
much heavier, hard-riding tire. The fatter tire's greater cushioning
ability is lost with the raised inflation pressure that becomes necessary.

Both of my bikes use medium-width tires--one is usually 1.5" wide and
the other is either 1.4 or 1.75. The last major modification I did to
both of them was change them from the ~25mm rims that they came with, to
~34mm width "downhill" rims.

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As for Mr Heine: I consider him to still be green, as he hasn't
graduated to recumbents yet.