Originally Posted by
njkayaker
You keep repeating this like it will magically make it true.
1- We know what tires he's using. If they aren't the "best" in rolling resistance, then it's obvious he isn't doing "all of those things".
2- If he was already doing "all of those things", it wouldn't make sense to worry about an extra few dollars (all that other stuff is much more money).
3- If he was already doing "all of those things", he would have told us he was doing that (like he told us what tires he's using).
Well, you don't know and it's not likely anybody will ever do the test.
There is data on the rolling resistance of tires. It would make more sense to save the few dollars on patching tubes to use on buying tires with lower rolling resistance.
Do you really think that a patch matters more than the tire?
Bizarre.
I keep repeating that because we don't know. I also don't know what his training regimen is, what his diet is, what altitude he trains at, etc. Making assumptions about those things and treating my own personal biases and preferences would be presumptious. Apparently, you don't feel the same way.
Something else I keep repeating is that it is an interesting question. Science shines best when it tests things that seem intuitively true. Consider - not that many years ago, it was universally "known" that a thin, rock hard tire was the fastest possible choice for road cycling. Generations of cyclists trained and raced on sub 21mm tires at 120+ psi. Then a few folks challenged the status quo and now we're all racing on 25-30 mm tires at sub 80 psi. Without asking the questions and testing hypotheses, we don't progress beyond the current technology.