Tyre Tech #1: Basics

Tyre Tech-Basics

There are a lot of technical terms used in advertising at the moment and I daresay quite a few ill-founded opinions floating round; and being of the opinion  that understanding what a product should be will ultimately result in people making the right purchase choice.

Let’s start by going back to basics. Tyres are important. They are your point of contact with the road and they arguably govern your speed far more than any other part of the bike. A good set of well-mounted and pressured tubulars for example could probably make a 40 year old ‘vintage’ bike ride better than a modern stock carbon jobby with poor quality clinchers incorrectly inflated. I am sure that everyone, given the choice, would take riding faster for the same effort-and good tyre choice can do just that. Going faster isn’t just a matter of choosing tyres that roll faster for a given input (ie: have lower rolling resistance), grip also plays a crucial part. It’s no good having the best rolling tyres in the world if you have to slow down to walking pace every time the road is anything but straight. Anecdotally, when I asked an ex-pro what pressures he used in the wet for example, he said he would go as low as 75-80 PSI in the rain, as he found being able to corner as normal thanks to the increased grip the lower pressures gave, gave him more of an advantage than the increased rolling resistance took away.  That’s perhaps slightly extreme as an example; but take mountain biking-going fast off-road is as much about having tyres that grip well as anything else, so some of that principle is obviously transferable to the road. Think about the cobbled classics, tyre choice for these races is crucial, and it’s probably not exaggerating to say the wrong choices could mean the difference winning and losing (perhaps not between Cancellara winning and Contador winning admittedly). All this is all pretty logical and probably nothing new, but I personally find it helps to get my head around basic needs/demands when trying to understand things. The skill in tyre design and manufacturing is finding the right compromise between speed, grip, and durability depending upon the desired application.

Rubber compound, tread patterns and tyre construction all play their role in making a tyre what it is; and ultimately on how quickly you go, whether you stay upright in the wet, and how sore your bum is after 5 hours in the saddle.  In my next post I’ll talk a bit about what actually goes into making a tyre-which is actually a lot more interesting than you may think!