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From: Roger Merriman <roger@sarlet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Science of cycling still largely mysterious
Date: 25 May 2025 08:31:38 GMT
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cyclintom <cyclintom@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Wed May 21 19:17:51 2025 Frank Krygowski  wrote:
>> On 5/21/2025 4:13 PM, Roger Merriman wrote:
>>> zen cycle <funkmasterxx@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> A full suspension bike is far more efficient over rough terrain in terms
>>>> of speed and comfort.
>> 
>> I dimly recall an article in _Bicycling_ magazine (before it effectively 
>> morphed into "Buycycling") that documented the measured increase in 
>> downhill speed of a suspended bike compared to a rigid bike. At that 
>> time, it was an unfamiliar concept.
>> 
>>> Indeed doesn?t take a particularly rough gravel road for my MTB suspension
>>> and tyres to make it a faster bike, vs the Gravel bike be that my times on
>>> Strava or unfortunate Gravel riders on the Ridgeway etc.
>> And in the past few years, many people have realized that it takes very 
>> little roughness to make wider, cushier tires valuable for increasing 
>> speed. Bumping the rider about has serious energy costs.
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Because touring bikes are supposed to be slower, people often don't
> notice that the wide tires actuallu make them faster. It certainly took
> long enout to notice that and I was as guilty as anyone else.
> 
I very much doubt that an older touring bike with 32mm tyres was faster
than race bike with 23mm tyres, you need to be comparing like with like.

Ie the touring type tyres such as Marathons have robust side walls vs even
Gatorskins which are much more supple tyres.

Are outliers clearly such as the Panaracer Pasela which are road bike ish,
in weight getting on for half the weight of the iconic Marathon.

back in the day I know folks who used them on Tourers/CX bikes for fast
commuters and similar.

Nowadays, road bikes can fit 30mm and more road race tyres which seems to
be the sweet spot, are some 50mm apparently being released but how popular
they are we’ll see.

Roger Merriman