Originally Posted by
RChung
I've been wondering this for a while. I asked Josh Poertner on his Marginal Gains podcast about it: he thought it would but he hadn't tested it either. OTOH, Tom Anhalt thinks it won't. If you know these two guys you'll recognize that they rarely disagree, so I'll take it that the question is currently unresolved. I'll probably test it at some point but I haven't yet had a chance.
I don’t see how adding a patch can not increase rolling resistance. After all, we know thicker butyl tubes result in higher RR than thinner ones. What is a patch other than a localized thickening of the tube? Now what the magnitude of that increase is and how difficult it would be to detect is another matter; but I don’t see how there could be any doubt about the direction of the change.
But giving Tom and Josh their due respect, I would be hesitant to rely solely on what is essentially a hand waving argument by analogy.