HOW WIDE ARE YOUR TYES??? 23? 24? 25?

Juan Vergara

I personally did not know that the pro bike peloton had moved to wider tyres. Found out form this GNC YouTube report:

http://youtu.be/EAq979WV1c4

I'm still on 23!!!! Yourself ???

tim cronk

TT Bike - 23's on FLO's w/80-90 psi (usually 85) FLO wheels measure 24.4mm wide at the brake track
Road Bike - 25's on HED+ w/70-80 psi (usually 75) HED wheels measure 25mm wide at the brake track

If I'm looking for comfort I favor the low end of PSI and speed go for the high end range of PSI ..... Even Ran the 25's this week for 42 miles at 65psi and they felt awesome! May even run a 25 in the rear of the TT bike this year.... Apparently they roll better and no aero penalty in the rear... certainly add a bit of comfort on a long ride!

Dino Sarti

23mm on my TT bike. 24mm on my roadies.

Robert Sabo

23 on the TT and 25 on the roadie

Mike Roberts

23' clinchers to train, 23' tubulars to race, inflate both sets to 100/110 (lower race tires to 90/100 for lousy-road races like TX and NZ).

GMAN 19030

23 on my tri bike
25 on my road bike

Brad Marcus

Spoke with a Zipp rep at the end of last season regarding tire size. They suggest 23 on the front and 25 on the rear for best (fastest) results. As soon as the bike is off the trainer and on the road, I'lm going to give it a go. At this rate, that may not be until June

Stephanie Hartmann

My tires are 23c, road bike, Trek Madone

Coach Rich

I need to pay more attention to my sizes, I guess. When I need a tire I go over to the WB and pull one out of the drawer and don't look at the size. I'll probably put 25's on my new bike when I get it. 

Big recommendation the Vitorria Diamante Pro tires. Excellent cornering traction, note the bevel surface below.

Dino Sarti

No love for 24s.... Huh.

Stephanie Hartmann

New bike?

Scott Alexander

I had a coaching seminar with Mat Steinmetz (Crowie's fitter, amongst others) here in Dallas last Friday, he said that most of the pro triathletes these days are running 23s in the front with 25s in the back. That just happens to be what I do on my race wheels.

For my training rig, I've got 25s both front and back.

Either way, at my big dood weight (~210lbs), my PSI is kinda high, at about 110+psi.

Anu Rao

Scot, I went to Steinmetz seminar for the public and thouht it was very informative. Was also surprised to learn about the wider tyre and also about the inflation. I'd assume high psi - high speed but apparently not so.

Juan Vergara

Scott,
I'm having a hard time finding the same model tires in 23 front 25 rear (at least for tubulars) what model(s) are you using??

Scott Alexander

Posted By Juan Vergara on 10 Mar 2015 08:50 PM



Scott,

I'm having a hard time finding the same model tires in 23 front 25 rear (at least for tubulars) what model(s) are you using??

I have Conti GP4000 clinchers. I'm sure they make tubulars, but might not carry them retail locally - you might have to order online somewhere.

William Jenks

I don't think this question is answerable without knowing something about the rims. Tim makes good points. The fastest tires for a given set of rims have low rolling resistance and match aero pretty well with the rim, as in the illustration that Rich made.

Daniel Huhn

Riding HED Ardennes Plus which means it's designed for 25mm tires. It took some getting used to, but it feels a little faster. At least that's what I keep telling myself. The other notable benefit is a lower tire pressure which means a softer ride, especially on the Ohio roads.

novaavant

Road clincher conti 4000s in either 23 or 25 depending on rims I'm using but I prefer the 25s. Tubulars I run either veloflex roubaix or vittoria pave evo both in a 25 with a little bit of cafe latex in them. The tubs I use in road races that have a lot of dirt and rock sections and run them with 90/100 psi and if super wet even less. I also race cross so I'm used to the handling of lower pressures.

Tri bike is 23 tubs with whatever I have left over which at the moment are the previous gen. tangentes but if I had it pre-glued then I just use it. For example I did IMChoo on the vittoria pave evo 25s glued to zipp 404.

Overall I like the ride of the 25s especially tubs on off-road races like hunterdon and battenkill. Don't know if they are faster or slower but last year I saw boat loads of pinch flats at hunterdon and I just rolled on through on the tubs.

Brad Marcus

I wanted to go back and find this thread since I'd remembered seeing a month or two ago. I just had a major issue with my bike and wider tires this past week. Here's what happened:

I have A 2012 Cervelo P2 with Zipp 404 FC clinchers (that I race and train on). I have always run 23mm tires on this setup and my choice has been the Conti GT 4000. I spoke with a Zipp rep at the end of last season who explained the benefit of running 23 on the front and 25 on the rear and ordered a couple of 25mm's with the intention of putting them on this season. After a long Winter, I finally pulled my bike off the trainer last week, and installed a 25mm tire on my rear wheel. After checking things out, I noticed the "normal" rubbing you sometimes get with a new tire against the cutout of the TT frame....the extra rubber that is on a new tire before you put 15-20 miles on it. I didn't think much of it. I went out and did a 56 mile ride with a fair amount of climbing. As soon as I hit a climb that was say >7% (there are a lot around here!) the tire was rubbing against the frame and squeaking like a wounded animal....really awful and required extra watts to power up a hill. I checked the wheel to make sure I mounted it correctly and conformed it was ok. After checking this out many times, I made it back home. I concluded that my bike frame was not built to have anything greater than 23mm tire, and switched it back out and VIOLA....all was smooth again.

Summary - make sure that your frame can handle the extra width (which will also had some depth) before going to a wider tire! The torque you use for climbing, puts extra stress on the tire which if close to begin with, can rub up against the frame on the hills. My guess is that the newer frames being built now, are made to accommodate the extra space with the move to wider tires. Now what do I do with my 25's??... Road bike I guess.

Paul Hough

23 front and back, road and tri. If I ever do Swissman, I'll be looking at 25mm for the cobblestone section.

Coach Rich

Adding to Brad's story...

I picked up 2x Vitorria Open Corsa Triathlon race tires and latex tubes. I'm pretty sure the tires are 23's...maybe even 22's? There's no 23 or 25 jumping out at me on the tire or the packaging.

I race with a ~9yo Hed3 tri spoke front and a new Reynolds Attack rear wheel, with PT and wheelcover. The front tire fits great, is pretty much seamless with the rim, etc. IE, it appears very aero. However, there's a pretty significant gap between the tire and the rim of the rear wheel, which is clearly made for 25 tires. However, the training 25 tire I had slapped on the front wheel I use for training would rub against the fork if I weren't careful about installing the front wheel.

The point is that is seams like newer wheels are migrating towards accommodating 25mm tires but frames and forks seem to be bouncing around best accommodating 23 or 25's. My sense is that older equipment (my P3C) is more setup for 23s vs 25s, but it's only an issue with the front fork. 

That said, my bike was a rocket this past weekend on the IMSG course, very fast and stable on downhills and no issues at all with some very high speed aggressive cornering. Just make sure you do your homework before investing in tires X days before your race, with only Y days to fix any issues that come up.