Things used to be simple. Fast racing bikes had narrow tyres. Very narrow tyres. 18, at most 20 millimetres were considered ideal. You pumped in what you could with your arms and floor pump. Hard was good. Because on normal roads, the narrow tyres could only hold air safely when they were fully inflated. Otherwise, potholes and manhole covers pose the risk of punctures, where the inner tube is squeezed between the rim flange and the tyre and bursts open.
With today's standard 23 millimetre wide tyres, the risk of punctures is low if a sensible air pressure is selected that is adapted to the rider's weight. The impression of comfort is significantly better than with hard-packed 20 millimetre tyres. Nevertheless, there is a noticeable trend towards even more voluminous racing tyres. Not as an exotic solution for the shaking tracks in Belgium, but as standard tyres. Occasionally, 28 millimetre wide tyres have also been spotted in comfort racers. But does this make sense? In order to get to the bottom of the influence of tyre width, we invited the market-leading manufacturers Continental and Schwalbe to test 23, 25 and 28 millimetre versions of the same model and compared them with six wide tyres from other manufacturers.
The test results of these wide tyres can be found below as a PDF download:
- Challenge Parigi Roubaix 27
- Continental Grand Prix 4000 S II 23
- Continental Grand Prix 4000 S II 25
- Continental Grand Prix 4000 S II 28
- Mavic Yksion Grip Link/Power Link
- Michelin Pro 4 Comp Limited
- Schwalbe One 23
- Schwalbe One 25
- Schwalbe One 28
- Specialised S-Works 26
- Vredestein Fortezza Tri Comp Slick
Downloads:
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