<story><title>Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower</title><url>https://www.renehersecycles.com/12-myths-in-cycling-1-wider-tires-are-slower/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rorykoehler</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t gravel bikes have much smaller gear ratios? There is no way a strong road cyclist would have the same times on a gravel bike as a road bike purely due to the size of the front chain ring. I run a semi-compact up front on my road bike and I can&amp;#x27;t go faster than 53kmh on the flat without my cadence getting too high to sustain for longer periods of time.</text></item><item><author>plorkyeran</author><text>Yeah, when I first got my gravel bike I thought I&amp;#x27;d be sacrificing some road performance for better flexibility and comfort, but that didn&amp;#x27;t happen. The actual result was that my times on smooth segments were unchanged and I&amp;#x27;ve beaten many of my personal bests on rougher roads (and obviously it&amp;#x27;s much better on dirt).&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not a perfectly fair comparison because I did upgrade to a nicer bike in the process, but my previous bike was already into the territory of significant diminishing returns for someone who doesn&amp;#x27;t race and doesn&amp;#x27;t actually care about saving seconds.</text></item><item><author>haswell</author><text>This is one of the reasons I love the emergence of the &amp;quot;Gravel&amp;quot; category of bikes. They look and have geometry similar to a road bike, but they have enough clearance for nice fat gravel tires.&lt;p&gt;I ride in Chicago (shitty roads, potholes &amp;amp; construction are everywhere), and love that I can put nice 38mm+ GravelKing Slick tires on the bike, and still have no problem keeping up with most road bikes. I&amp;#x27;ve gotten funny looks from folks who&amp;#x27;re unfamiliar with the concept, but it&amp;#x27;s such a great setup.&lt;p&gt;Comfy&amp;#x2F;soft ride too.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Cannondale Topstone if anyone is curious.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>plorkyeran</author><text>I run out of gears on flat terrain but that is a negligible portion of what I ride. I&amp;#x27;d definitely expect a gravel bike to be a bigger handicap if you&amp;#x27;re riding mostly flat terrain and actually care about your speed on those sections.</text></comment>
<story><title>Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower</title><url>https://www.renehersecycles.com/12-myths-in-cycling-1-wider-tires-are-slower/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rorykoehler</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t gravel bikes have much smaller gear ratios? There is no way a strong road cyclist would have the same times on a gravel bike as a road bike purely due to the size of the front chain ring. I run a semi-compact up front on my road bike and I can&amp;#x27;t go faster than 53kmh on the flat without my cadence getting too high to sustain for longer periods of time.</text></item><item><author>plorkyeran</author><text>Yeah, when I first got my gravel bike I thought I&amp;#x27;d be sacrificing some road performance for better flexibility and comfort, but that didn&amp;#x27;t happen. The actual result was that my times on smooth segments were unchanged and I&amp;#x27;ve beaten many of my personal bests on rougher roads (and obviously it&amp;#x27;s much better on dirt).&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not a perfectly fair comparison because I did upgrade to a nicer bike in the process, but my previous bike was already into the territory of significant diminishing returns for someone who doesn&amp;#x27;t race and doesn&amp;#x27;t actually care about saving seconds.</text></item><item><author>haswell</author><text>This is one of the reasons I love the emergence of the &amp;quot;Gravel&amp;quot; category of bikes. They look and have geometry similar to a road bike, but they have enough clearance for nice fat gravel tires.&lt;p&gt;I ride in Chicago (shitty roads, potholes &amp;amp; construction are everywhere), and love that I can put nice 38mm+ GravelKing Slick tires on the bike, and still have no problem keeping up with most road bikes. I&amp;#x27;ve gotten funny looks from folks who&amp;#x27;re unfamiliar with the concept, but it&amp;#x27;s such a great setup.&lt;p&gt;Comfy&amp;#x2F;soft ride too.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Cannondale Topstone if anyone is curious.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blakblakarak</author><text>If you can spin out a 50x11 or similar on the flat you&amp;#x27;re in a very small minority of cyclists...</text></comment>