Re: fat is faster

cyclintom <cyclintom@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Sat Feb 8 22:29:16 2025 Roger Merriman  wrote:

That Dylan Johnson has been doing some limited testing to find the fastest
Gravel tyres, which is larger than most folks would think.
 
though does as he notes depend on you and your riding, my Gravel riding is
often mixed use, and I like it?s adaptability, which would be compromised
with much larger tyres ie be more draggy on the tarmac.
 
Though if you?re just riding on the trails then a 2.1/50mm tyre is almost
certainly a better choice, I personally like being able to ride
tarmac/mud/roots etc which the all road/Gravel bike I have does fine, it
gives a bit to mates with newer bikes with wider clearances but it?s
certainly not enough to tempt me to a new bike!
 
And if it?s really narly can just use the MTB which just flattens stuff!
 
<https://youtu.be/iq9ydwkRt0Q?si=eX_6lRdPWtLwjh4k>

 
 
 
 
On my gravel bike I had 38 mm tires. Going fatter would have gained
nothing unless the terrain changed from gravel to wild MTB.
 

If it was wild MTB then you’d need or at least want Suspension and MTB
geometry ie a MTB!

Dylan Johnson does race and isn’t the only one playing with fatter tyres
and with some older MTB races drop bars, as the race is fairly tame
technically ie it’s a Gravel race but Gravel bikes didn’t effectively exist
when the race was started.

Wider tyres to start to get a performance edge even on tame stuff would
seem, and certainly a comfort level most new Gravel bikes seem to be in the
40/45mm range.

As noted does depend on your use case, and what your bike will take mine is
older and originally a All road bike so 35/38mm is the limit mud being
encountered I stick to 35mm so there is clearance.

There isn’t enough performance gain for me to justify a new bike, but if I
did I’d probably aim for 50mm ish, and take the slight hit on the road.

But between the gravel bike and my MTB they cover all uses, though worth
noting again that a MTB has suspension and geometry which further improves
its technical terrain performance over MTB tyre equipped Gravel bikes.

Roger Merriman