Interesting video on tire width myths...
 

Thoughts?

6 minutes in and I gave up. He babbled too much, it was confusing. Will try again later.

I think YOU need to make better titles for your threads from now on. "Interesting" covers a lot of territory. As for the video, I think the video is over-analyzing the point. Sometimes conclusions are worded to make them simpler to understand (although less accurate).

Not everyone wants or needs to know all the scientific detail of how something works. After all, how many people driving cars know how the internal combustion engine work? They just want to know the basic stuff -- a 4 cylinder is more economical than a 6 cylinder, which is more economical than an 8 cylinder. But are they really?

As for the tires, there is a balance between efficiency and rolling resistance. And the tire manufactures simply cut to the chase without spending 13 minutes explaining the minutiae.

Full disclosure: I'm picky just like that. I could very well have made a dozen videos with similar arguments about a variety of topics. Stay turned.

Suck, squish, bang, blow. I thought everybody knew that. Fewer people likely know that a turbine works in the exact same process.

Say whaaat? You mean to tell us that a lab tested 4 cylinder gas engine in a full sized SUV is not efficient when used in the real world environment?

Wait...What are we talking about?

I haven't studied this in depth, but it seems that it's more about the engine displacement than the cylinder count. In some cases more cylinders at the same engine displacement might even be more efficient. Of course there are many other things to consider, and there might be other disadvantages beyond fuel efficiency. I vaguely remember Suzuki (or was it some other Japanese carmaker?) having plans for a 1.6L V12 engine, however, those were scrapped. Smaller displacement multicylinder engines are often found on race cars, but in this case it's probably more about power vs. weight and the ability to rev higher than fuel efficiency. Mazda have been making 2.0L V6 for years, and its fuel efficiency wasn't significantly different from 2.0L 4-cylinders.

This is one of those "Let me set up a myth that doesn't really exist and then disprove it." The myth he claims is out there is "Wider tires always roll faster due to a larger contact patch." Then he kind of throws in "and tire pressure doesn't matter" to this alleged myth.

The old myth was "the skinniest tires at the highest possible pressure will always be fastest" and was usually based on 2 things:

1. That is what the professional racing cyclists do
2. Roller tests showed the lowest rolling resistance

When some tests tried roller surfaces that were more like real world road surfaces vs. perfectly smooth, the tests show the old myth wasn't true, but also never said wider is always faster or that no matter how wide a tire you should use the same pressure. Lots of pros have moved to wider tires and cyclists like me (who aren't going fast enough to see the aerodynamic advantage of a narrow tire mean anything) have moved to wider tires at lower pressure and seen equal speed at more comfort or higher speed at equal comfort - just as the actual tests and measurements showed.

I'm not going to watch a 12 minute video on something I've already read a lot about, but obviously the real myth was the smaller/higher pressure, the faster. There's really no other explanation for why 23 mm tires were ever a thing. It's a completely impractical size otherwise.

basics of how a reciprocating engine works.

Apparently, that one went right over your head.

usually does.