Bicycle Quarterly Rolling Resistance

I just finished going through this past fall s threads on the tire performance testing reported in bicycle quarterly 5 1.

Bicycle quarterly rolling resistance. No surprises showing 1 108 of 108 messages. Bicycle quarterly spring 2013 issue has an interesting selection of rolling resistance test data. Back in 2007 2008 during the paris roubaix wheel development i had an interesting moment in the arenberg forest. Rolling resistance of a tire arises almost entirely from flexural rubber losses in the tire and tube.

Part 4a in this series covers the history of bicycle rolling resistance and the how and why pneumatic tires are so awesome. On the other hand rubber without carbon black although having lower losses wears rapidly and has miserable traction when wet. Tire pressure has almost no effect on a tire s speed. We did not believe it at first either.

The differences were much larger than expected. Rubber especially with carbon black as is commonly used in tires is a high loss material. In the past cyclists thought that higher tire pressures decreased the tires rolling resistance. The fastest tire in the test rolled 20 faster than the slowest tire in the test.

I really enjoy it even though it s focused more on randonneuring than on racing bikes. I subscribe to the magazine and read every article. Bicycle quarterly rolling resistance tests. A report in bicycle quarterly by jan heine demonstrated that wider road bike tires produced lower rolling resistance than equivalent skinny tires.

If you just want to see the data you can jump to part b here.