Cycling Equipment · Public discussion

Tire Sizes

Started by campbellj · · Last activity · 3 posts · 1,236 views

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Cycling Equipment
Published
8 March 2010
Last activity
11 March 2010
Original author
campbellj
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3
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Frame sizingPunctures and flatsTrack cycling

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  1. Original post
    campbellj
    Archived post
    #1

    As a few of you have read, I am new to road biking and am building a bike as we speak. I got a great deal on a set of Zipp 404 tubulars for my bike. I've never had tubulars and wow what a pain in the ****... The rear tire seemed to be quite crappy, so I took it off and found 2-3 years of glue that had never been taken off so it was quite difficult to remove. Took me a few hours, but I got it all cleaned off, now to my question..

    What would be the advantages/disadvantages to running a larger tire up front and a narrower tire in the rear. I got a brand new Tufo 19mm for the rear and it has a conti 22mm in the front already. The rear tire I took off was a 20mm. The tread is still good, but the fabric tape is coming off at places, and it seems to be repaired once, so it's probably garbage, unless the glue can be cleaned off and re attach the fabric over the sew up part. I dunno about that either. I have no problem pulling off the conti and using it for the rear if there is more advantage to having a larger tire in the rear.

    I would think that having the 22 in the front would give me more steering/gripping power and put the new 19 in the rear, but I'm new and could be wrong. What do you all think?

    If I missed a thread that discusses this already, please feel free to point me to it, I tried searching but didn't come up with much. Thanks in advance!

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  2. tafi
    Archived post
    #2

    Assuming you are racing on the road with these wheels, 22 or 23mm both front and rear is ideal. Rolling resitace is minimised with this width (and in plenty of cases 25mm tyres can roll faster) and the 404s are designed for tyres of this width.

    19mm tyres are strictly for smooth track racing and will shake all your teeth out on the road.

    However, there is no harm in trying out different setups. You might actually like the way you have it.

    Fat front and narrow rear appears to be more of an MTB thing where levels of grip are far lower than on the road (and the limits of this grip are more likely to be crossed), and some compensation is needed for the fact that MTB weight distribution is more rear-heavy than on a roadie.

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  3. campbellj
    Archived post
    #3
    tafi said:

    Assuming you are racing on the road with these wheels, 22 or 23mm both front and rear is ideal. Rolling resitace is minimised with this width (and in plenty of cases 25mm tyres can roll faster) and the 404s are designed for tyres of this width.

    19mm tyres are strictly for smooth track racing and will shake all your teeth out on the road.

    However, there is no harm in trying out different setups. You might actually like the way you have it.

    Fat front and narrow rear appears to be more of an MTB thing where levels of grip are far lower than on the road (and the limits of this grip are more likely to be crossed), and some compensation is needed for the fact that MTB weight distribution is more rear-heavy than on a roadie.

    Yea, after reading this I have pretty much just decided to keep the 19mm tufo as a spare to carry and get me home if ever needed, It's light enough and easy enough to put on that I think it would be perfect to have in a flat tire situtation, other than that, I have found a place tirealert.com that I can send the Vittoria tire and just have the base tape replaced cheap. The tread is still almost perfect on it, so I am gonna do that and just re use that tire. Thanks for the response!

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