Too much of a good thing?-Road tire size
 

My first road bike was a 1993 Trek 1100. I am almost positive that it came with 700X25c tires. I bought 23's the first chance I had. And, then I started to hear murmurs of the joys of 28's and, even, 32's. My next tire upgrade was to 27's and, alas, that was the largest I could squeeze in my 1100. I bought a Soma Double Cross in 2003 and have never ridden smaller than 32's since. But, as the availability of wider tires grew, so did my desire to have them. Now, I have arrived at 650bX42 on my Raleigh International and I am wondering if I need to get something to allow a wider tire. It occurs to me that I have been chasing ever bigger tires assuming they will be better without much thought. I have barely even ridden the 42's and I am questioning whether I could be happier on wider tires. I decided that I am going to stick with the 42's for a while to see if more would be better.

What about you? Have you made a decision about what width you prefer? I am not talking about empirical testing and the like. I am asking about what works best for you. Have you been blindly following the big tire trend like me? Sticking with the tried and true skinny tires? Really putting thought into what tire works best for you? I am curious. (I know it is foolish to ask folks not to start flaming each other over tire choice. I really just want to know what you have been doing with tire choices.)

This will be interesting. I have settled on 32s mostly, but have a couple on 35s so the responses should be enlightening.

After riding 28 mm tires for most of the last two decades, I am moving more towards 32 mm tires. I blame the Clunker Challenge for that - when I first participated in 2016, it was a revelation to me just how well 27 x 1 1/4 tires at 70 psi handled not just bumpy local roads, but dirt roads as well. The 700x 32 Paselas on one of my 2021 Clunker entries on a battered Cannondale ST400 shocked me as how smooth they were. The biggest surprise was how well the 27 x 1 1/4 tires on my '76 Puch felt, and how shockingly smoothly they ran.

For me it depends on what I am riding. Most of my bikes are now tubular with 23 and 25's. I don't really feel a big difference, maybe it is because they are the same tires, just different sizes.
Obviously I would not put a 25 on a MTB! It has had 2.1 inch. Not much between, yet.

I decide on a bike-by-bike basis. My racing machines currently wear 20 - 28mm tires, my touring bikes 26 - 33.3mm.

I have a pair of 38mm Continentals, which I don't particularly like. They are comfy, but the loss of handling sharpness kinda turned me off.

It seems a waste not to use them, so they are currently on my winter beater:

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I absolutely have made a choice. On my winter bike/grocerygetter I run 25. I have one bike with 21, and one with 22. The last two bikes have 23. But the 2 bikes with 23, only have them because I have a hard time finding skinnier tyres. Actually it´s really simple, the skinnier tyres I run, the faster I FEEL (Also the skinnier tyres in general can take higher tyrepressures, and I prefer around 9,5 bar). I have no idea whether I´m actually right about the skinnier tyres being faster, but the fact that I FEEL faster is enough for me. I also believe that fat tyres simply are ugly on a real roadbike, and let´s face it, a big part of riding vintage steel, is the beauty.

I've been just as happy riding 32's on Miyata 1000 through urban streets as I have been riding 23's on a Rossin fixed conversion. So I guess it doesn't really matter all that much to me. I was surprised by how much better tubulars felt on a Raleigh Competition, they came spec'ed for some years. Haven't really ridding tubulars much though because I haven't taken the time to learn how to glue them. I'd like to give a try one day.

I have found that a whole host of factors, in addition to tire width, play a role in ride quality: how long my ride is, the quality of the roads, the bike itself, my mood that day. Bigger isn’t necessarily better in all cases, nor is skinny necessarily bad. In short, it depends.

I always get the widest tires my bikes will allow. If the bike is to have fenders then I get the widest I can and still allow room for fenders. A couple of my bikes won’t allow for anything larger than 25mm tires and I consider this my rock bottom for skinnyness. The widest I’m running currently is 32mm but I’ve got a few projects in the queue that’ll take up to 35mm or maybe even 38mm.

25c.

And I'd prefer they measure true, not like my GP5000s that measure closer to 23.

I cannot say I know this but I strongly suspect two driving forces in the popularity of today's wide tires are frame materials and tire type. I say this as someone who raced in the '70s on pretty narrow tubulars pumped to around 110 psi on often not pristine New England roads. On a very steep, short wheelbase steel frame and very light tubular rims.

I never felt I was taking a pounding. And I did long miles on that bike. My other bikes were similar but more laid back and softer riding. One weekend I raced a criterium in the morning, a 5 mile TT that afternoon, 60 mile road race the next day, then after, 50 miles across the state line with a racing buddy. Stayed at a motel that night, then rode about 160 miles home. Never crossed my mind that the ride was uncomfortable. (Yes, I made it a point to never ride with my arms straight so they never acted as pile drivers. I just left my handlebars and grip vibrate as they wanted. This completely in sync with the coaches' advice of keeping our grip firm but arms relaxed so the next bump from a fellow rider would be no bid deal.

After 20+ years of tubulars, then a marriage where both sewup expenses and repair time were not advisable, I went clincher. Quickly found out the tires needed to be bigger both to feel as nice and for road grip. (At least one crash that wouldn't have happened on tubulars.) Eventually, tread quality got so good the road grip was back and the comfort better. But last summer I started back to tubulars. Wow! The new technologies on that classic construction and system - a dream ride, and tires can be a bunch narrower. Tuesday I rode my plush 28c tubulars 60 miles, mostly on decent chipseal. The ride (on my classic Peter Mooney) - perfect. 25c's would have done just fine (and maybe been a touch better on that hard, hard upwind 25 miles coming home).

I have another bike I've gone to tubulars on but haven't got it quite right yet. An early '80s pure race bike. 24c max. (25s don't even turn.) I've used 23 and 24c Vittoria Open Pave and G+ clinchers on the bike. They work. Ride is good.) But I longed for the tubular experience. Built up a pair of race quality wheels at the weight I used to train on (when I replaced the rims as tired, beat up and no longer round; dents every year. So, for these pristine wheels, my old 110psi to protect the rims! Bought some Continental Giros, 23c. Bad! At that pressure, bouncy. Braking to a stop on a steep hill, not fun. I am about to build up some heavy, rock solid tubular wheels for that bike so I can ride the sweet 23c Veloflexes I bought at the right pressure for the ride and not have to worry about the occasional rim strike. Betting that this will be a to-die for ride. Yes, pure race! Skinny, light, aero in the old way. (No tear drop? Just make it really small.)

Once I have that setup running I will be riding what I raced nearly 50 years ago except - better, stiffer frame and parts (evolution), and heavier by 150 grams each wheels. (There is no longer an endless supply of 330 gm tubular rims to run down to the shop and buy. And stronger, more secure rims for a 70 year old? Well, I'm on board with that concept.)

The 23c tires mean I will have to pay attention - to rocks (= dollars spent), road cracks - (wedged front wheel, over the bars, bad) ... But there isn't a better ride to keep on focused than the best of the '80s steel race bikes! And it's fun! With very high quality tubulars, not a hardship at all with say 105 psi nominal pressure. (Nominal: 2-3 psi more in back, 2-3 less in front. What those coaches said years ago and based on nearly a century of experience.)

Frame materials - yes, construction makes for a very wide variation in ride and road shock/vibration. Still, it is quite apparent that titanium frames are the most comfortable, steel frames are more comfortable than aluminum and that carbon fiber is closer to aluminum than steel. Also that the metal frames and forks do not dampen vibration much and the CF can. There seems to be a somewhat contradictory sounding paradox - steel and titanium frames transmit a lot more vibration but it isn't an issue and that on CF bikes, it often is despite far more damping. (On Cycle Oregon a few years ago, I was riding my ti bike and hanging with another ti rider. Every time we hit chipseal, we would have to near hit the brakes to stay off the wheels of riders ahead on CF bikes who promptly slowed a lot. This became a standing joke between us.)

I haven't ridden CF rimmed wheels. I wonder how much more road shock they transmit. I know the "experts" say that all wheels transmit shock. You gotta run big tires at low pressure. They are also saying that what I have learned in my many miles and hours of experience is wrong. I love the shallow section lightweight tubular rims with no vertically stiffening sidewalls and really light spokes. (DT Revs and the like. Basically what I raced 50 years ago only without the newer DT and Mavic alloys and quality.)

Not a rant. I really don't care what works for others. I find the new bikes, technologies, weights, etc, very interesting. But the best of the old stuff is my ride! The bicycle is mankind's supreme achievement. The product of the best minds on the planet. They got as close as you could get with the materials of the day and the best was very, very good.

Old people and children want wider tires and electric bikes. I didn’t. I’m not. And I won’t act my age.

I have pretty much settled on 28mm

but have have wheelsets 1) 32mm clinchers and 2)29mm tubular that going to try on new bike, but when I put fenders on will go to 28mm

it will be fun because I will be able to do a pretty direct comparison between 32mm rene herse tubed clincher and 29mm FMB cobblestone tubular

28mm, Centurion Ironman from the 80s. They were a bit of a squeeze, but it's a nice size for me.

^This

My narrowest right now is 32, widest is 52 (26" Rat Trap Pass), limited by the frame and fork + fenders or not.

I had been perfectly fine riding on 25's. At one point I tried 28's, and it was more comfy than the 25's, but not so much of a difference that made me ditch the 25's. But 2 weeks ago I started running tubeless 28s' (Conti GP 5000S TR) and to my surprise- it's significantly smoother riding than 28mm clinchers. It smooths out the normal road vibes a lot better than clinchers. If you haven't tried road tubeless yet, you owe it to yourself to give it a try just for this reason alone.

All of my bikes have tires. And tubes.
They are not all the same size.
Tire pressures…differ.
I’m OK with that.

Don't have a bike that will take anything larger than a 25

You know, one advantage to modern disc brakes is that you aren't limited to one tires size, necessarily, but not even to one wheel size! Sure, that's possible with some rim brakes, too, but it's easy peasy to swap out those wheels. Case in point, went touring on this one a week or so ago with 650B x 42mm wheels and fenders:
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Last year, I took it bikepacking with 700 x 32 wheels (and carbon rims, which I later destroyed):
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Fwiw, I really can't tell much of a difference between the ride of the two sizes.

I can remember racing and training on Michelin SuperCompe HD's in New York State in the late 80's. Those were 23's. But I was in high school, and 6'2" and 128 pounds rather than in my late 40's, 6'4", and sixty pounds heavier. And, I swear, the roads aren't as good today as they were back then. (As a country and state-by-state, we've not kept up our infrastructure.)

So yeah, I'm now running pretty much the biggest tires I can fit in each bike. Or fit under fenders. But I like 700c 32mm tires on a day-to-day basis. They're way better on Seattle's beat-up roads, don't mind gravel if I can find it, and don't really cost any speed.

Well for me the sweet spot is 25-28mm on my bikes. Off the top of my head I' can say that right now I have from small to true size 700 x 23 to larger to size 700 x 30 amongst close to 30 road bikes. The majority of them are running 700 x 25. I ride on mostly paved chipseal, of which a lot is in bad shape. I try to fit as large of a tire as I can but most of the old steel bikes are limiting for anything much larger than the 25's. I do have some I can go much larger on but each time I try it just makes the bike feel sluggish and slow under me.

My style of riding daily is still to go as fast as I can. Daily rides avg around 24 miles the last couple of years with a lot of longer rides on the weekends and other days I'm off. I also do long mountain climbing rides routinely. My average annual speed for all the rides comes in somewhere in the 17 mph range each year. But average on the daily, mostly flat rides is in the upper 18 mph range. Meaning this broken down, fat, old man still likes to push the legs and speed on his rides. I like responsive feeling bikes under for the most part and too me that does not mean the current trend to 30mm and bigger tires. Maybe I'm just not strong enough to spin those up?

I'll also say that over the years some of the rides I've gotten have come with the old 19-20mm racing tires. Always give them a try when I first get the bike. Impressions always seem to be that they give a "harsher" ride than I like. Anyway, that's my two cents.

Bianchi: Continental 28mm, which are actually closer to 25-26mm. I would use true-to-size 28s, such as Specialized, but they won't.
Other road bikes, with more generous clearance: 32mm (true size) seems a good number, 35 if they'll take it (Capos, Carlton).
Peugeot UO-8 transportation beater: 27x1-1/4" rear, 700Cx28 front. Because of my shorter-than-OEM fork offset, toe-to-tire overlap becomes even more severe with a 27" front or a 700Cx32-35 front, and that's with shortish 165mm cranks.

I agree with all of this. It's not a popular opinion around here. How you "feel" on your bike means little to the physics professors who populate this site. Unless you can verify it with numbers, what you "feel" means little.

I currently run 23 mm Veloflexes at 140 psi. If I could find 20 mm slicks, I'd run those. But this hobby currently isn't one of choice.

I am running 35’s on both my bikes. They feel good.


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I think the quality/suppleness of the tire is nearly as important as the width. I've got some Rene Herse 35s on a set of wheels that feel nicer to me than the 42c Hetres on another set of wheels. For me, a big advantage of going wider is being able to (comfortably) 'go anywhere'- I'm surrounded by seasonal/state/gravel roads (and the 'good' roads are generally awful), and I never think twice about heading down a route I've never been before. Fat 42s are nice, but I'm kind of coming around to 35-38, if quality, supple tires, being my 'sweet spot'. I recently got some old Mavic tubular rims though, and I'm interested in building up a set of wheels and experiencing the purportedly superior ride of sew-ups (though I'll probably be a little more cautious with my route choices on those wheels).