The biggest gain you'll feel going to a bigger wheel and skinnier tires is the aero and rolling resistance drop. Now the gains are probably in the real world gain of less than 1 mph, but you'll see minutes drop from your usual time range over a long ride. Since you want to relegate the old bike as a cabin bike, I would suggest you upgrade your 700c wheels on your main bike and transfer the old wheels to the older bike. This way, you'll enjoy the both bikes more. If you up the budget around $400, you can get a set of Hunt 4 Seasons, which are good AL wheels for all sorts of riding, plus tires. A pair of Schwalbe Pro One TLE 32/34-622 will set you back another $140, Switch your 28mm to the hunts and use the Schwalbe on the old wheels.
Originally Posted by
Jimmy Legs
Hello. First post. I'm new to the cycling world and overwhelmed...I bought my first 'adult' bike in 2018 - a Salsa Journeyman 650b Claris with 2.1" WTB Nano tires. It's been a good bike for my purposes. I recently took it to our cabin where I now only ride on paved roads. For my regular bike at home, I just recently purchased a new Trek Domane AL 2 which has 28mm tires. It has made me realize how slow my 650b gravel tires are on road. Since I don't have any intentions of using it on gravel anymore, I'd like to have a more road friendly setup without breaking the bank. Obviously going to a more road friendly tire will help. But I'm also considering switching to a 700c wheel so that I can run narrow/low volume tires without dropping my bottom bracket too far (which would happen if I used significantly smaller tires while sticking with 650b wheels). It looks like a 700c with 32 or 35mm tires will closely match my current 650b 2.1" tires outer diameter.
Questions:
I see switching to road oriented tires as following two main parameters: (1) switching from knobby gravel tires, (2) switching from high volume/wide tires to lower volume/skinnier. I’m interested in each parameter’s general contribution since I would not invest in 700c wheels if more of my existing inefficiency is related to the knobby tires. However, if both are big contributors then I would upgrade both.
If there is a big gain in efficiency from going to the lower volume tire, then I would need a 700C wheelset. Considering I have disc brakes, I'm confused as to what wheels to get. The original wheels are:
Front: Formula, 32h, 100mm, WTB STP i23 TCS 650b, 2.0mm spokes, brass nipples
Rear: Formula, 32h, 135mm, WTB STP i23 TCS 650b, 2.0mm spokes, brass nipples
Can you recommend an equivalent 700C wheelset so that I can swap the rotors and have everything fit-up? I'd like to spend no more than $300-$350 for new wheelset and tires if possible.
Thanks!
There is another issue you haven't touched, the gearing change from the circumference of the smaller tire. He'd be essentially running about 5-8% slower because of the smaller tire for the same effort. Pickup will be faster but once up to speed, the rider has to pedal faster for the same speed, negating the rolling resistance and aero benefits of a smaller tire.
Originally Posted by
Iride01
No. Imagine your bike with no tires on the wheels at all. Besides no traction and a bad ride, where do you see any problem for the BB? While in a turn, your pedal might be a tad closer to the ground. I doubt you will be banked over that much. And if you do pedal through turns and have a strike, you'll learn quickly not to be pedaling through those turns at that bank and speed.
If you know the ISO or ETRTO size of your tire and just compare the difference in ISO width of the two, then that will also roughly be the change in height of your bike from the ground. So if you are looking at a 32 mm wide tire then your bike height only changes about 3/4" to maybe not quite an inch.