I have wanted to switch to wider tires on my bike, for quite a while now.  I haven’t made the switch because I had several sets of narrower tires, that I wanted to use, before switching.  With my next race coming up next week, I have decided that, now is the time to make the switch.

I am switching from 700 x 23c up to 700 x 25c tires.  Why would I want to do that?  There are a couple of reasons:

• Wider tires have a lower rolling resistance and are therefore very slightly faster.  They have shorter and fatter contact points with the road.  This means that the tire deforms slightly less when rolling along the road. Less deformation, means less rolling resistance, which in turn means higher speeds.
• Wider tires are also typically inflated to slightly lower pressures, which means a more comfortable ride.  The tires are better able to soak up surface imperfections in the road, acting like mini shock absorbers.

There are, as always, a couple of caveats.  To maintain good aerodynamics, it is important that your wheels are suitable for wider tires.  You generally don’t want the width of the tire to be significantly wider that the wheel rim.  Correct tire pressure is also important.  Over inflating a wider tire, will negate its benefits.

My new tires will go onto my bike this week.  I am not sure yet, if I will notice the difference, but I am looking forward to testing them out.