Planning my US Coast-to-Coast cycling - Spring-Summer 2020

[MRC01]

When I ride my MTB on gravel rides, I use size 27.5x2.25 / (57-584) tires, Schwalbe G-One Allround Snakeskin tubeless. They roll a bit faster than the 27.5x2.4 knobby tires I normally use for MTB trails; compared to knobby tires, their traction is a bit worse on rough trails, a bit better on the street, and about the same on gravel. I've considered going narrower, 27.5x1.5 / (40-584) but not sure those would fit & perform properly on this MTB's wide rims.

Anyway, the point is that wider tires do have high rolling resistance, but aren't necessarily as much slower as people think, and they can have advantages on rough surfaces. If you read trip reports from people on big gravel rides, they're finding better performance on wider tires. Like saying, run 40mm wide instead of 32 if you have rough surfaces.

 

[Speedskater]

gee, I still have a set of wheels with 18mm tires.
if I were to replace them, I might go all the way up to 23mm.
* * * * * * * * *
I used that type of tires for lots of 100 mile morning rides.

 

[MRC01]

Well that advice was for a MTB on gravel, not road! Decades ago I used to run 20mm tires on my road bike. Blast from the past: Specialized Turbo VRs and Avocet Fasgrip slicks from the 1980s. They rolled nicely but even with high quality tires at full pressure (like Vredesteins at 150 psi) I'd get a lot flats. At the time I realized that I never got flats on the road tandem, which put even more stress on the tires but had more robust tires. So I started running slightly wider more robust tires on the road bike and get a lot fewer flats. Like 700x25 instead of 700x20.