Mavic recommend 28mm as minimum width of tyre for their A319s rims. Can I go lower?

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Fab Foodie

hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
Location
Kirton, Devon.
Is there a good reason why you want to use 25mm?
I found 28mm to be great having come up from 23s upwards and have my28s on 23mm Archetype rims where the profile is just peachy. They ride so well and I've gone the same on my new fixed.
 

e-rider

crappy member
Location
South West
I ride 32mm on mine howeevr, there is not much to gain from moving from 28mm to 25 mm so why not just stay with 28mm. If you want to run 25mm tyres perhaps you need new wheels or even a new bike!
 
OP
OP
Jon George

Jon George

Mamil and couldn't care less
Location
Suffolk an' Good
Is there a good reason why you want to use 25mm?
No, not really - it was just a set a circumstances wherein the 28mm tyres on #3 needed replacement, whilst I also wanted to prepare #2 for winter with some new Marathon Plus 25mms and wondered if it was safe to transfer them down to the next bike. I'll admit to losing a little quality in how it feels manoeuvring on town roads, and I may have a re-think, but I'm happy enough at the moment..
 

Banjo

Fuelled with Jelly Babies
Location
South Wales
I have recently fitted Scwalbe Lugano 25 tyres to Mavic A119 rims and they seem to be fine.

The tyre locked straight into the rim and looks fine.ie nice and round in shape with no flat area.

My reason is I had some new Lugano 25 tyres already and not sure I can keep my mudguards with bigger tyres.

Sheldon agrees with Mavic that 28 should ideally be minimum but then goes on to say that the graph is conservative and many people use tyres bigger or smaller.
 
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Ajax Bay

Guru
Location
East Devon
Wider tyres of the same quality and at appropriate pressure are faster (ie coefficient of rolling resistance is lower), more comfortable (at the lower pressure), and a little heavier (eg 10%).
For example (Mavic Engineer Talk) the Crr of a 23mm tyre inflated to 100psi, is the same as that of a 25mm one inflated to 80psi.
While increasing the tyre width (and lowering the pressure appropriately (see attachment)), the rolling resistance is not raised, while comfort is significantly improved. However if your goal is to lower your rolling resistance, you can just go for a wider tyre and keep the same riding pressure.
The same applies with even wider tyres (28+mm) but then weight and inertia (latter only matters really in crits) will come into account and there will be a trade off to be made between rolling resistance, inertia and weight. And you struggle to find decent road tyres (ie not 'touring' or 'urban') above 28 nominal that aren't rather heavy. [I would be interested to hear of suggestions - Marathon Supremes? Vittoria Voyager Hyper?]

Better ride quality with both wider rims and wider tires:
More air volume means a stronger protection against snakebite, by increasing the distance of the gap between the ground and the rim edge.
As a result, tyre pressure can be lowered to improve comfort and traction (?) without increasing the chances of pinch flats.
The OP's 319 rims can take a nice wide tyre: why would you want to run less comfortable (narrow) ones, ackowledge the limitation of frame clearance?
 

Attachments

  • TyreInflationPressures.pdf
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