ON the other end of the spectrum, where I live there are essentially no UNpaved roads. I'm surrounded by private famland with a good network of paved roads in between farms. It's over an hour's drive to get to any significant unpaved roads. It's also a very long way to anywhere I'd want to camp, so S24O's from home are out. Most of my riding is done with the local bike club on an unloaded 'racing' bike and nominal 25 mm tires (the current set measure about 26 mm). Anything else just adds weight. The pavement we ride is rarely bad enough for comfort to be an issue. I use nominal 28's on my Riv Road, which is currently set up with a fixed gear, but those also measure about 26 mm.
I commuted on 38 - 40 mm 650b tires last year and had a distressing number of flats, more than I had in many more miles of riding on skinnier tires on the same roads. This year I'm going back to 700c for commuting, running 35-622 Vittoria Randonneur Pro's that measure around 34 mm on my rims. The extra width didn't give me significantly more comfort on pavement, but I suspect that the wider contact patch picked up more thorns, wires, glass and such. I'll still ride the 650's some this year, more for easy solo rides and the rare out-of- town trips where I might get off the tarmac or need to carry extra supplies. I've owned 50-559 Marathon Supremes, and didn't find them to be all that wonderful on pavement. On a loaded tourer I might have felt differently. Bill On Jan 27, 8:30 pm, Bob <prov...@umbc.edu> wrote: > Much is said about Rivs taking big tires, those advanced, low rolling > resistance, low pressure tires that absorb shocks, stop flats, survive > long tours across the tundra, and eliminate potentially hazardous > resonances in areas of lipid storage. But when do you get too much of > a good thing and your king of the road turns into a beach cruiser? > Aside from Riv gatherings where riders compare tire widths, when is > bigger not better? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
