The science of tire pressure is complicated, but wider tires require less pressure for the same volume of air than narrower tires, allowing for a more comfortable ride. But with the move to wider tires has also come a trend towards lower pressure. Tires are printed with a manufacturer’s recommended pressure range, and road riders used to think inflating their tires to the highest possible pressure was fastest. All 3 of these tire types use the same sizing standards and terminology but are generally not interchangeable. Finally, tubular tires are permanently sewn closed around an internal tube and are glued into a specially-made rim. Certain clincher rims can also be used with tubeless tires, which use a liquid sealant in place of an inner tube. Clinchers are most common these are the familiar tires that seat into a walled rim around an inner tube. It’s also important to understand the different types of mutually-incompatible road tires. For instance, a 650b tire will not fit on a 650c rim. The letter that follows the diameter measurement in French tire sizes originally delineated width, but it’s now mostly just useful to differentiate between similarly-named but incompatible sizes. 650b (ISO 584) and the rarer 650c (ISO 571) are two examples, both sometimes used on bikes for smaller riders. Most new road frames can at least fit up to 28mm tires but double-check your frame’s allowance before sizing up.Ī few other less common wheel and tire sizes exist for road bikes. The limiting factor is usually the bike itself, with some frames unable to accommodate tires beyond a certain width. As a result, 700c x 25mm and 700c x 28mm are now the most common road tire sizes many riders prefer even wider widths of 30mm or 32mm. But recent research has proven wider tires to be faster and more comfortable in most situations. It used to be widely accepted that narrower tires were faster and 23mm was the standard width. Nearly all modern road bikes use 700c wheels and tires. This measurement can help resolve any ambiguity about whether a tire will fit a particular rim, but as with other systems, the ISO measurement of a tire’s width is an approximation and may be impacted by pressure and rim width. The ISO measurement displays the tire’s nominal width in millimeters, followed by the diameter of the tire’s bead (the surface that actually attaches to the rim) in millimeters (ex: 25 x 622 is a common road tire). To reduce confusion, most tires are also labeled with a second system of measurements called ISO (formerly known as ETRTO). Rim width and tire pressure can significantly influence the size of a tire when mounted and inflated, and tires often measure a bit larger or smaller when installed than the printed dimension would suggest. But some obsolete or unusual sizes can be misleadingly labeled, and any tire’s nominal measurements (especially width) are really just approximations. This makes it pretty straightforward to fit a modern tire to a modern rim-a 700c tire will almost definitely fit a 700c road rim (we’ll explain that “c” later), and a 29” tire will likely fit a 29” mountain bike rim. For example, a 29 x 2.25 mountain bike tire is about 29” in diameter and about 2.25” wide, while a 700c x 25 road tire is approximately 700mm in diameter and 25mm wide. For mountain bike tires these dimensions are expressed in inches, while a millimeter-based system called French sizing is used for road, gravel, and track. The diameter measurement is an approximation of the tire’s total outside diameter including treads, and the width is a measurement of the approximate total width of the tire when mounted and inflated. What are the basics of bike tire size?īike tires are typically measured in two dimensions- diameter and width. Better understanding how your mountain, gravel, and road bike tire size is measured can help you fine-tune your equipment, and learning how tire size relates to performance can make you faster when it counts. Your bicycle’s tires might not be something you think about very often, but they have crucial implications for every aspect of your ride.
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