I think it was earlier in the year, from my own experience after skidding off the road, a thread that was in discussion argued that slicks are better than tredded tyres (we are talking cycling road tyres), and that it was just a load of marketing BS. After the minor excursion from the road I was of the belief that I should get some winter tyres with a tred, to which the consensus was that slicks are better.
So is the statement in the article completely wrong, and if so why (please)
thank you
Oh I see. No, the statement is correct for certain cases but the reason they give is wrong.
There are a couple of scenarios here all refer to road bike tyres for now.
1) Bicycle tyres don't require tread because they cannot aquaplane, therefore slicks are better in that they will last longer.
2) Bicycle tyres with shallow tread compared to tyres with no tread will have exactly the same grip since surface area is irrelevant to traction. However, once the tread depth increases, the tyre starts to squirm and therefore "walk" (Understeer) when cornering and braking. This scenario is for large, deformable knobbly tread.
3) Surface area is directly proportional to wear, therefore slick tyres will last longer, yet offer the same grip.
4) Tread on most lightweight road tyres are just slicks in disguise because the "tread" is just a bogus hash pattern or some pointy arrow designs to pretend that they are treads.
These are the sort of spin variations I can put on the slick tyre question, but none of them equates to the mixed up scenario that Schwalbe proposes, hence my snort of derision.