Anyone still using 23 C tyres?

[chris667]

I never said anything about stability. I am talking about durability, and the fact that you are more likely to get punctures and damage your wheels on 23mm tyres than wider ones.

I don't see why this is contentious.

 

[mickle]

I've got 28c on my road bike, 32c on my street bike and 42c on my tourer. Back in the olden days i had a bike with 17c tyres!

 

[Alex321]

That simply isn't true, the width of the tyre has no bearing on how stable the bike is.

And he didn't suggest it might.

Up to a short few years ago no one turned up at the start of a race with tyres wider than 23, and that was from the lowliest amateur level all the way up, including the often wet and muddy cobbled classics and 60mph mountain descents.

Wider tyres are now seen to have performance advantages, but itis nothing to to with safety.

The safety point is about fragility, not stability. Hit a pothole at speed with 23mm tyres, you are far more likely to get a snakebite puncture than with 28mm tyres. And a front wheel puncture at speed can be dangerous indeed.

 

[raleighnut]

Ooh, get you, danger man! Not sure why you're trying to tell me how fast/good you are.

For the record, I've owned many bikes of varying levels of quality. Some of the ones I've enjoyed most were pretty bad, and I didn't like some of the good ones.

OK, dangerous is a poor choice of words. But the point I'm trying to make is you have to be careful riding hard on a bike with 23mm tyres in a way that you don't have to be when you ride 1.75 tyres. Riding a bike like that gives you a different sort of focus because the tyres and wheels are more fragile, no matter what you say.

I love my road bikes, but I'm not interested in riding them now. Even if I did, roads are not as good here in Derbyshire as they were when I lived in Oxfordshire 20+ years ago. I used to do 250 miles a week on road bikes with skinny tyres back then, and I loved it, mostly.

I was never into measuring how fast I was, but I know I used to get to work faster on 25s than I did on 23s. But that's a different discussion.

I remember my first MTB (Raleigh Mustang) when I was given it needed a lot of work so I put on a nice Aluminium crankset and new rear mech/chain/rear sprocket on some handlaced wheels John had built for me and thought as it's an MTB I'll put some real knobbly tyres on it.
Anyhoo I'd ridden it a few times and felt OK so one morning decided to go to work on it, my route included on it a fast downhill into a roundabout from a main road to a right turn onto an industrial estate (so 3rd exit) and I went in at about my usual speed on the correct lane to go 3/4 of the way round only to find it wouldn't hold the line as the tyres 'knobbles' squirmed about and the bike slowly (well quite quickly really) started understeering and drifting wide, luckily I had 3 lanes and the traffic was quite light that morning but it scared me

 

[Jameshow]

I remember my first MTB (Raleigh Mustang) when I was given it needed a lot of work so I put on a nice Aluminium crankset and new rear mech/chain/rear sprocket on some handlaced wheels John had built for me and thought as it's an MTB I'll put some real knobbly tyres on it.
Anyhoo I'd ridden it a few times and felt OK so one morning decided to go to work on it, my route included on it a fast downhill into a roundabout from a main road to a right turn onto an industrial estate (so 3rd exit) and I went in at about my usual speed on the correct lane to go 3/4 of the way round only to find it wouldn't hold the line as the tyres 'knobbles' squirmed about and the bike slowly (well quite quickly really) started understeering and drifting wide, luckily I had 3 lanes and the traffic was quite light that morning but it scared me

I did that in my cx bike went from 28mm to 32mm knobbies.

Went over a tight canal bridge... The grip wasn't there with the tarmac apart from the grip my knee and thigh seemed to find!!

 

[raleighnut]

I did that in my cx bike went from 28mm to 32mm knobbies.

Went over a tight canal bridge... The grip wasn't there with the tarmac apart from the grip my knee and thigh seemed to find!!

I stayed on but it was a full 2 wheel drift, I'm sure I put a crease in the new B17 though.

 

[chris667]

I remember my first MTB (Raleigh Mustang) when I was given it needed a lot of work so I put on a nice Aluminium crankset and new rear mech/chain/rear sprocket on some handlaced wheels John had built for me and thought as it's an MTB I'll put some real knobbly tyres on it.
Anyhoo I'd ridden it a few times and felt OK so one morning decided to go to work on it, my route included on it a fast downhill into a roundabout from a main road to a right turn onto an industrial estate (so 3rd exit) and I went in at about my usual speed on the correct lane to go 3/4 of the way round only to find it wouldn't hold the line as the tyres 'knobbles' squirmed about and the bike slowly (well quite quickly really) started understeering and drifting wide, luckily I had 3 lanes and the traffic was quite light that morning but it scared me.

Yes!

I think my worst one was my old riding to work bike. A Raleigh R50 which I bought for very little money, which to be fair was all it was worth. I ended up spending much more on a pair of wheels than the bike cost.

Anyway, I fell out with that once when I was doing about 45mph downhill and the binder bolt on the stem snapped. The bar didn't fall out otherwise I would have died, but I managed to do a deathgrip on the bars until I could stop at the corner of the road.

It was amusing in hindsight. I dumped the stem, bars, frame and forks and transferred them onto a new frame which I had for a long time.

 

[fossyant]

That simply isn't true, the width of the tyre has no bearing on how stable the bike is. Up to a short few years ago no one turned up at the start of a race with tyres wider than 23, and that was from the lowliest amateur level all the way up, including the often wet and muddy cobbled classics and 60mph mountain descents.

Wider tyres are now seen to have performance advantages, but itis nothing to to with safety.

I'm expecting this 'width' thing to change again - it's like a fashion. Road bars, used to be relatively narrow, then went wide, now it's a trend for super narrow, which the UCI has now stipulated a minimum measurement. Many road bikes, especially with callipers, can't go wider than 28c, only the 'trend' for gravel bikes etc has changed this. MTB's are the same, fat bikes or plus tyres (2.6") - they seem to have faded away !

Use what you've got !

 

[Vapin' Joe]

I'm expecting this 'width' thing to change again - it's like a fashion. Road bars, used to be relatively narrow, then went wide, now it's a trend for super narrow, which the UCI has now stipulated a minimum measurement. Many road bikes, especially with callipers, can't go wider than 28c, only the 'trend' for gravel bikes etc has changed this. MTB's are the same, fat bikes or plus tyres (2.6") - they seem to have faded away !

Use what you've got !

I think the same. At some point the trend for wider and wider will come to an end and there will be a move back to narrower tyres - maybe not 23's but something not a million miles from them.

It's happened with frames quite a few times - the biggest you can fit, the smallest you can ride and so on.

 

[chris667]

Historically speaking, I still think that the trend in the eighties for skinny tyres and no clearance for mudguards was one of the more foolish trends in bike design. There was never a performance advantage in building a frame that could only take a 23mm tyre without mudguards.

I have a significant birthday coming up in a couple of years - I think I will be treating myself to a custom bike - it will be like a good suit. That will have caliper brakes because discs are ugly and unnecessarily complex for a road bike, but it will have have long reach calipers. Maybe centrepulls, because I think they look nice.

 

[Webbo2]

Historically speaking, I still think that the trend in the eighties for skinny tyres and no clearance for mudguards was one of the more foolish trends in bike design. There was never a performance advantage in building a frame that could only take a 23mm tyre without mudguards.

I have a significant birthday coming up in a couple of years - I think I will be treating myself to a custom bike - it will be like a good suit. That will have caliper brakes because discs are ugly and unnecessarily complex for a road bike, but it will have have long reach calipers. Maybe centrepulls, because I think they look nice.

How long will your cranks be. Maybe 180’s to buck these new fangled ideas. 😉

 

[Dogtrousers]

I have a significant birthday coming up in a couple of years - I think I will be treating myself to a custom bike - it will be like a good suit. That will have caliper brakes because discs are ugly and unnecessarily complex for a road bike, but it will have have long reach calipers. Maybe centrepulls, because I think they look nice.

Friction shifters, naturally.

 

[chris667]

How long will your cranks be. Maybe 180’s to buck these new fangled ideas. 😉

I suspect my knees wouldn't approve.

Friction shifters, naturally.

Whyever would I do that? It will have cables and barend shifters, though, rather than electric. It will be a machine I can fix and service myself.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

I used to commute on ‘20’ section tyres
(the widest that frame/fork would take with mudguards; Salmon Profils, at that!!)

What else do you do for kicks?

Avoid vaccines, eat cheap Fugu fish, play Russian Roulette? Drive the wrong way on the M25?
Walk on the cracks in the pavement

Argue with your wife?

 

[Punkawallah]

Friction shifters, naturally.

Looks like I’m ahead of the curve. Michelin ‘World Tours’ with a 32-40 inner tube because the modern, 28mm//1&1/4” won’t take 80psi in that tyre profile.