I’ve noticed more manufacturers putting out quality extra-wide rubber (i.e. 35mm GP5000, 42mm Vittoria Corsa, etc.) as well as more road bikes with the clearance to run these (Allied Echo, Trek Domane, BMC Roadmachine, etc)
I’ve been riding 30-32mm tires for the past 7-8 years, but I am considering the idea of potentially going wider with my next road bike. Curious to hear people options who have gone really wide on the road. Benefits, drawbacks, bro-science, etc
Road bike Conti 5000 28mm 700c
Gravel bike Terra speed 45mm 700c
On the road wider tires take more effort to maintain the same speed.
Not a direct comparison but something worth noting.
The wider tires do smooth out rough roads.
I’ve been on wide road tires, slicks or file treads, since 2015 and after the initial couple years of observation it became clear to me that anything above 35mm didn’t offer any benefit for paved riding. Our roads are in good shape and the stuff that is bumpy or rough is handled fine by 35s.
I only do a handful of 100% pavement rides so I still ride wider road tires 35-42 but in more of a mixed terrain mode.
A really good 40 feels very close to a good 35 but still has enough extra mass to feel a little slower, and a lot slower during standing climbing or very low cadence seat climbing. The wider tires don’t feel as lively, even controlling for pressure. I’ve tried a few of the fastest 40s at BRR and they just don’t feel as good as the GP5000 AS TR 35, and I’d imagine the regular GP5000 S 35 is even better.
One thing I noticed is that steady state and rolling the tire width feel is muted and a variety all feel good. For stop-and-start riding and really punchy climbs is where the difference becomes significant. Riding in urban traffic with a lot of lights my 44 EL Rene Herse tires felt terrible by the time I got to open roads in a way the narrower tires didn’t.
Handling and descending are better but overall if there’s not enough terrain or parcours to get enough out of the tire it’s not worth it to go bigger just because. Why are you considering wider?
My R3 road bike only takes up to 28. I’ve been riding 32’s on my cyclocross bike (on the road) and really like the feel of 32’s. I also live in an area with pretty crappy roads. Can’t believe I used to ride 23’s and thought 25’s were just training tires back in the day.
This is what I kinda wonder where the tipping point is (which I imagine is gonna be different for each person).
The one I situation where I feel like I could benefit still going wider is descents/cornering. We have a local climb (1700 ft over 5 miles) that I’ve done about 50 times. My fastest descent is on a round tube gravel bike with 40mm conti terra speeds…..despite trying to beat it multiple times on a tarmac with aero wheels.
I’ve been riding gravel bikes as my road bike since ~2020 and have moved away from running anything smaller than a 40. When I initially made the transition to gravel bikes, I would mostly run full sized gravel tires, but would sometimes swap to 32’s (particularly in the off season when I wasn’t racing). During the season, there was zero reason to run a road tire and I quickly came to appreciate the comfort of running big tires on the road when logging big training hours. And during the season, I’m fit enough to hang with fast group rides on gravel tires and the extra watts required is a bonus for training. Learning how to hang onto a group at high speeds with gravel tires adding some drag is a good proxy for the heavy pedaling you encounter during gravel races.
As time has gone on, I’ve used narrow road tires less and less. 90% of the time, I’m running something in the 50-55 range and have recently tried running 40’s and they feel very strange. I think it’s the pressure more than anything. With all the crappy roads we ride, anything over ~35psi just feels annoying to me now. I can run the 40’s at 35psi, but they don’t feel much faster than a fast 50mm gravel tire and I think I’m just increasing my chance of pinch flatting with very little benefit. I guess if I rode nothing but pristine fresh tarmac, I might see the benefit in putting 32’s on the bike, but I just don’t see the point based on the roads I ride. Big tires definitely suck some watts on smooth pavement at high speeds, but I don’t treat group rides like races (I generally keep my ego in check). A faster tire doesn’t really buy me anything unless I want to jump in a real road race.
I’m with grwoolf here.
I just have a fast gravel bike with racey geometry and that’s my only bike. I’m usually running 45s or so with a good hybrid tread that doesn’t bog me down on the road. I really have never needed anything else. And its nice if I see a fire road to just go “fuck it, let’s dance” and disappear into the forest if I feel like it. Its a great bike for touring for this reason too. Just chuck bags on it and maybe some aero bars.
I’m a big fan of the do it all bike strategy. Plus its nice to only have to take care of one bike. I have a backup Diverge just in case but I rarely pull that out.
Been running the 40mm Michelin pro 5s on my old gravel bike and it is my favorite road bike. I sold my road bike a couple years ago after deciding that I like fluffy tires more on road too
I join the contributors above in this thread.
I also ride my gravel for 90% of the rides, 42mm semi slicks, good part of it on pavement. I have a nice road bike (GP5000 30mm) and it feels more lively, but I ride it much less. I am not even that fit and it doesn’t bug me to ride the 42mm. It feels like riding a couch.
Do it all bike runs 35c GP AllSeasons, given the choice for the race bike, I’d settle on 32c or 35c GP STR.
35mm GP5000s are the smallest tire I run these days. Right now my “road bike” has 40mm Pirelli PZero Race. I say that in air quotes because my road bike is a Crux 5.
I’ll challenge this somewhat. Sure, technically it’s more effort but it’s not as much as people think. I have a short 3.5mi loop that I use for testing and have been doing some recent tire width testing.
Pirelli PZero 40mm: 8:43 24.3mph 333W
Silca RCG-1 50mm: 8:52 23.9mph 330W
Conti GP5000 32mm: 8:43 24.3mph 328W
The Pirelli 40 and GP5000 32 got the same time, but the GP5000 required 5W less. That could be a rolling resistance difference as the GP5000 is a faster tire. Or could be some aero gains being smaller. But I was surprised that the difference was so small. The 50mm gravel tire also did fairly well, losing about 10 seconds per 4 miles. I plan to test the 35mm GP5000s next. I’d love to see the comparison between the 32 and 35 of the same tire. Plus, when I had them mounted on my ENVE G 4.5 wheels they had a really nice tire rim transition.
WC Spoiler below
And another data point or just a bit of info people can use or disregard. Remco just won the World Champ TT on 30mm tires. Granted, 30mm isn’t super wide but far wider for a TT than we’ve ever seen.
I have a fast/light/stiff road bike for races, hill climbs, KOM’s. Running 29’s. I use it in good tarmac almost exclusively. Love it.
For more comfortable endurance rides I put 32mm GP5000 STRs on my gravel bike…..but thinking about putting 35mm.
I’ve also considered RH 44mm slicks and getting another drop bar bike exclusively for this. A Crux 5 or an Aspero-5.
Are you mounting 35mm tires on a 30mm internal wheel?
Yes. They inflate to around 39mm. I love this setup. The external width of the rim is around 38mm so it’s almost flush.
I’m going that way but will not go beyond ETRTO standards. So 27mm internal >> 35mm GP5000 STR. Max
Curious to hear your rational here
I think ETRTO is way too conservative. I’ve been running 32mm tires on 29int rims for years. ENVE even says 29mm on their hookless 25int is fine (1.16 ratio), so why wouldn’t a 35mm tire on a 30int be ok (1.167 ratio)?
Would you run a Silca RCR-1 38mm tire on the G 4.5?
No. Even Enve says 40mm min.
Fair enough. Everybody has their limits. I’m fine running them but I get where the hesitation is. Cheers.
Have a bike set up on 35mm. Overall it’s been great. I’m in uk and we’ve got a lot of poor road surfaces around me. Grip and ride quality is great. Don’t really notice any speed difference when solo or on group rides that are endurance to tempo pace. Do struggle a little (relative to doing the same rides on my race bike which has 28s) when the pace gets high and/or there are a lot of accelerations. Suspect that may be because the wheels I’m using on that bike are more optimised for a ~28mm tire so the 35s bulge out quite a bit which is maybe costing aero watts that become noticeable at high speeds. Maybe a bit of extra rotational weight impacting accelerations as well? Don’t think it’s rolling resistance, or at least certainly not on the poorer roads. We do tend to do fast group rides and chain gangs on routes chosen for having pretty good tarmac so maybe on those roads a narrower tire at higher pressure rolls a little better as well as being more aero. Considering getting some wheels optimised for wider tires (DT Swiss GRC or Reserve 40|44 GR wheels look like both inner and outer width would work nicely) but that’s quite a hard cost to justify for a bike I don’t race on!
In short - if it’s a solo or relaxed group ride it’s my bike of choice every time because of the ride quality. If it’s a ride where speed is the number one priority and I need all the help I can get then I pick the race bike.
Yep. Smoother ride and much better immunity to road imperfections and debris make the tradeoff of a little bit of speed well worthwhile for me.
Am I riding wider tires on the road? Not right now, but my road bike is about a decade old NK1K rim brake so the biggest tire that can be stuffed in there is a 28mm. Now, 2017, 2018, 2019 I was all about riding a 32mm on the front and a 28mm on the back. But these days I just put 25mm on there and it’s all good.
If I want to run balloon tires I just ride my gravel bike. But the NK1K is faster. And I don’t mean just 1kph faster, but well faster. So for putting around town at 32kph & not worrying about cracks/holes/road detritus the wider tires are the way to go. But if the group is going to flat get after it the NK1K w/25s is the way to go.
Although the idea of an all-road bike with file tread 35s is appealing, it isn’t (yet) several thousands of USD appealing. It’s maybe, like…USD1500 appealing.