Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
I typically run the front at about two thirds to three fourths as much pressure as I have in the rear. There was one exception, in West Texas I was on some really rough chip seal for a week and I dropped my front pressure to maybe 55 percent as much as I had in the rear to reduce the vibration in my handlebars.
Yeah, that Texas chip seal can be the worst! Did you only drop the pressure in the front? I usually lower both. I figure it makes sense to have a balance between front and back.
I like the idea of going by percentage drop, but am too lazy to calculate it. I think I wind up with a similar drop front and back without actually calculating it though.
I don't usually get very scientific with tire pressure. I used to just run them quite hard. In some cases a bit harder that the label listed as maximum. I noticed that over the long term rides tended to be a little faster on some of my regular around home rides when they were a bit softer due to my laziness in topping off pressure. Then I started watching the data more closely and found that didn't seem to be true for really smooth pristine surfaces. Since then I have tried to run the higher pressures on really nice surfaces and lower ones on slightly to very much rougher ones. I am pretty sure it works out better for both performance and comfort.
I suspect that rolling resistance on a glassy smooth surface is actually better with a tire that is inflated quite hard, but it is possible that the performance increase I observed was due to rider comfort.