Originally Posted by
surak
Besides my experience with 23s being easily caught in bad pavement grooves, I also had more snake bites running them (I'm bad at bunny hopping) -- 23s are also significantly more annoying to repair a flat roadside. As a lighter rider, I learned that suggested PSIs were all way too low to ride 23s, so I had to pump them up until they were much, much, much firmer than any higher volume tire. That made a terrible combo with the bone-jarring metal bridge joints along my commute, a trail feature of the new bike path linking Seattle to the Eastside that caused so many complaints that the DOT actually did something about them and had them replaced. Even with the horrible old design, I was confident enough to ride IAB on 25mm+ tires over them. 23s? No way.
It's all relative. Starting around 2011 we used to have a road race here that involved about 30%-40% gravel. At the time the tech recommendation was "maybe think about putting on 25's if you have them and can find them and they can fit".
The same race today would have people putting on 36's.
It's 2mm. I would venture a guess that it wasn't actually as much of a difference as you think it was. Pressure and tire compound make a larger difference.