Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower
Narrower tires, necessarily inflated to a high pressure, are actually inefficient on a bumpy surface.<p>A tire&#x27;s job is to absorb surface defects in the road, and that is not only for comfort, but rolling efficiency.<p>The extreme example of this occurs off-road. Off-road vehicles benefit from wider tires that are inflated to a lower pressure. If you have an off-road vehicle, it behooves you to take some of the air out of the tires when you go off-road.<p>25mm road bike tires basically require a polished velodrome; real roads consist of pitted, eroded and cracked asphalt.<p>If your bike is vibrating from the crappy road, you&#x27;re probably not going as fast as you could be. Letting some of the air out for a more efficient, smoother ride is risky, if the tires a narrow; you risk snakebite flats and damage to the rim.<p>For commuting in run-down city with aging infrastructure, you want at at least 38 mm tires. 40 mm is a nice round number. You can vary the pressure for the kinds of roads you&#x27;re riding on with a lot of margin, and can take it quite low for dirt roads.<p>I&#x27;ve commuted around town with pressures as low as 45 psi in the back, 35 in the front, in 45 mm tires.<p>I have story in relation to that. One time I was riding along NW Marine Drive in Vancouver, from UBC down to Spanish Banks. I came down from the hill and then along the flats there were some Spandex-clad road cyclists ahead of me. I pulled up to them and we were neck and neck. There was road work going on up ahead and the pavement had been scraped, leaving it horribly bumpy. I stood on the pedals and just cranked right through it, hardly slowing down. I saw in the mirror mounted on my eyeglasses that road bike guys dropped off as if a sniper had taken them out.<p>What is the use of narrow tires? It&#x27;s just fashion, like stiletto heels.