What’s It Like To Ride SUPER Wide Road Bike Tyres?

After 40mm performance road tyres proved remarkably popular, Ollie and Conor had to scour the market in order to finally get hold of a set. While Ollie gives us the theory about their performance, Conor put them to the test. But what actually happens when the rubber hits the road?

⏱️ Timestamps ⏱️
00:00 – Intro
00:38 – We got some 40mm slicks!
01:52 – Performance differences
03:45 – The big problem with these tyres…
04:42 – Let’s put them to the test!
05:49 – Run 1
07:06 – Run 2
08:00 – Results are in!
09:50 – Conclusion

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I started racing on a 23 mil wide tire and then as the years progressed we all moved to 25 mil and then I raced the lights of the J Italia and the V at espania on something like this a 28 tires have been getting wider and wider but what is the limit well pelli have just brought out these new 40 mm wide P0 race tires is this the width that we're all going to be riding in the future or are they too wide and too slow I really want to find out so let's do that 40 mil is a huge width now of course in the gravel world it's something that's fairly common you can pick up a 40 mil wide gravel or all Road tire fairly easy although still the trend is moving towards wider tires but to find an out and out performance Road Tire in this width is a rare unicorn indeed yes although now we finally managed to find some and get our hands on them we've been wanting these for quite a while but they've been well surprisingly popular and hard to get hold of but I'm glad we've got them now and as Connor says what sets them apart is the fact that they share the same construction and compound as the top end road tires that the pros use in the biggest bike races so essentially super fast but very very wide although still I think if I rocked up to a world tour race with these I might get a few funny looks even more than normal right take it easy anyway they're available in a variety of sizes so this same Tire the P0 is available in four sizes from 26 to 32 MIM wide and then now they also offer it in 35 and this the 40 the [Music] biggest so as mentioned the tires feature the same construction with the speed core liner and they're made in the same Factory near m they're just bigger uh but with that extra size means more mass and more weight so the 40s are 455 g a tire whereas 28s are 295 g a tire and that's quite a lot uh but if you were on a climb like Al Duz It would only account for a couple of seconds in your total Climb Time just isolating that mass difference what would make far more difference is the rolling resistance now according to lab experiments carried out by bicycle rolling resistance.com one of my favorite websites then the difference in Rolling resistance between the two tires is actually pretty significant you're looking at a ruler flam 5 wats which on a climb like Alp Duz is massively significant that's worth more than a kilogram of weight but it's not all bad news for the wide tire because in the lab they also reckon that this has significantly more wet weather grip than the E28 thanks to its larger contact patch and they also say that it's got significantly better puncture protection now this is interesting because although it has the same construction this is because the force of the tire on the contact patch is spread over a much larger area and so there's less Force pushing objects through the carcass of the tire well that's what the lab data says but I'm intrigued to see if we can see any of that out in the real world Connor has ridden bike races and cornered on bicycle tires at the highest level of the sport in all weather conditions he is a master at this and so I'm really interested to see what his perceptions [Music] are now when we planned this the the plan was for me to ride the tires as well as Connor and I really want to I really want to try them out and see what they're like but they won't fit in my bike and they won't well they won't fit in any of my bikes I mean that's catching there on the frame and this is the problem because most people's road bikes are not going to accommodate tires this wide if you've got a gravel bike then it probably will and there are some other cases such as Connor's injour race he's riding today it can fit in there although I should point out it's not designed for them in terms of out andout road bikes no road bike that I'm aware of available on the market today will accommodate a tire this wide but the same could have been said about road bikes 10 years ago none of them would have fitted 28 mm tires so maybe things will [Music] change okay so I've designed a 7 and 1 half km route to put these tires to the sword I'm going to start on the 40 Ms I'm just going to run as fast as I can on this cuz that's part of what this is all about before I then switch to the 28s yeah now logic would suggest that well on these kinds of roads in these kinds of conditions where it's wet and slippy and there's quite a lot of potholes that the 40s are going to be much more comfortable and a lot faster in the corners but the the 28s are going to be lighter and probably roll faster so I guess we'll it'll be pretty interesting to see I can't wait to find out and we got a bit of everything on this Loop so that's going to take all that into account now I have just about squeezed the 40s into my Canyon and duras this bike's designed for 35 mil Max so it's pretty night in there yeah but was doing okay well I'm just wearing Lyra today cuz I just enjoy it so you go and you can set me off yeah right let's do it count me in right beep beep beep beep beep here go the 40s that was definitely a typical lap close to GC Omega base in the winter bit of everything some fast flowing roads but also some really Mucky back Lanes uh just covered in rubbish and stones and grit but the tires there felt amazing and on the fast B too actually felt so nice it was like why book a place take it to newor when you can get a set of these tires it just Smooths the road out completely I think I did feel a bit sluggish on the climb it's like a long drag back up where I did feel like it was slightly pulling me back maybe and on those accelerations but overall so smooth so nice like riding on carpet was lovely and felt pretty fast too now though time to swap back to the 28s see how they Fair [Music] it's just Ro riding jobs are good in right Connor 28 let's go 3 2 1 [Music] felt faster but it's so hard to say definitely felt Wilder on those rougher sections on the back half of the loop interesting to see though how that all translates the time first need to catch my breath and dive through those results maybe a coffee or two pie you've done the runs what are the results I've recovered results are in so let's go through it for the big tires first average power 334 Watts I did a time of 17 minutes and 7 seconds for the 7 and 1/2k then we switched into the 28 average power 331 interestingly I was faster so 60 Minutes 49 seconds what so how many seconds is that three Watts less 18 seconds difference 18 seconds 18 seconds faster I mean that is that's significant a b difference but it's not all about pure speed and and a lot of people aren't bothered about that so what were your other perceptions what were your other feelings what was it like to ride the bigger ones I mean Comfort wise grip and like confidence on the corners in some of those Messier sections was a a lot more um just you just feel smoother like that lap very typical of the roads around here in a lot of places around the world you don't have perfect tarmac and when you're hitting those like crinkles in the road those like rough pars it just felt like you you were on smooth Tac it was lovely really really lovely um felt like I just arrived in mior on a nice smooth um asphalt road so if you had to ride 40s or 28s for the rest of your life pick one what are you going for it's quite a hard on because then you go to the 28 and they feel real nippy and and light and fast when you accelerate out of the corners and the bike feels more responsive but then when you're on the 40s you your pace and it just feels nice just to like settle in and just Cruise that's a very politician likee diplomatic answer don't really answer the question okay well according to our testing and the lab data backs it up 28s are faster and I think that means we're not going to see big boy 40s used anytime soon in Pro Racing no I think he a bit too wide bit too wide right well I hope you found this useful let us know what you think and what width Tire you'd rather use would you like to try some massive wide road tires like this let us know in the comments and uh hopefully we'll see you in the next one love you bye