Spoked Wheels
Legendary Member
- Location
- Bournemouth
You cite several easily explainable reasons for your tiredness here.
The first one is the placebo effect. You saw yourself putting heavier tyres on and therefore you feel more tired.
Secondly, you didn't perform any scientific measurements. A given cadence on a given day or video footage of someone overtaking you is hardly evidence.
Thirdly you say you don't have to do the experiment because you just know. Well, religion also works like this: I know, just because I know.
We have on numerous times here debated the actual wattage required to ride heavier wheels and have done the math. Simply plug in 2kgs and you'll see that
it doesn't make the type of difference you cite. Certainly not enough to make you have to drop from a big to small blade.
Finally, a tyre full of water has less rolling resistance than that very same air-inflated tyre. Tyres with thicker rubber have a huge rolling resistance, enough to feel. Just swap from a thin road tyre bike to a knobbly MTB tyre bike and you will notice it. That's not the same as weight. Rolling resistance works against you all the time, whether you are going uphill, flat or downhill. Weight (anywhere on a bike only works against you when accelerating (which a bicycle for all intends and purposes doesn't do) and when climbing.
The best way to do this experiment is one someone who doesn't know. I had ample opportunity to do it because friends used to let me work on their bikes and I had plenty of time to fill my Silca pump with water and inject it into the tyre and bleed off any air and fill it to the brim. Not a squeak from any of them and Strava didn't know any better either.
Don't allow your mind to play games with you.
If I were you I'd sell your finding to sky, they based their success on marginal gains.
