Finding Your Ideal Tire Pressure

[martyg]

https://gearjunkie.com/mountain-bike-tire-pressure-psi

 

[Tom K.]

Another pretty good one:

http://www.gravelcyclist.com/bicycl...-tire-pressure-guidelines-by-enve-composites/

 

[Ron]

https://janheine.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/tire-pressure-take-home/ This is for Road bikes. The Berto chart is a start; you can modify as you prefer but I pretty much follow this howeve, I no longer differentiate front and rear tire pressures at least on road bikes due to the braking forces that load the front tire. I use the rear tire pressure for the part. for my Pro One's 28's which sit at 32mm, I run them at 65 F/R on our chip and seal and find this to be the ideal (for me) PSi for not only comfort but they roll damn fast!

https://janheine.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/tire-width-how-much-difference-do-a-few-millimeters-make/

Read this article for excellent article for information on tire size volume. small differences are actually quite substantial which makes lower tire pressures possible.

 

[Ron]

@martyg GREAT ARTICLE the comment regarding tire casing (TPI) is spot-on, Jan Heine writes about this extensively which is why he created Compass Tires which have an effective TPI of about 320. Unless you have some super sharp and crazy riding environment, a 120 tpi tire is always preferential

Living in CO the section about temperature differentials is really important!

 

[François Pugh]

Please elaborate on the benefits of not just simply using the maximum inflation pressure printed on the tire sidewall on my road bike.
Thanks.

 

[Ron]

Please elaborate on the benefits of not just simply using the maximum inflation pressure printed on the tire sidewall on my road bike.
Thanks.

go to the link I provided, from there, look to the lower right hand side and start reading through the articles on tire pressure, width and so on. We posted up a bunch of PSI and tire width articles on another thread in the road bike section, I will cross post later. The long and short of it is, (and this is discussed in the mountain bike tire PSi article) that tires that have too high of a PIS, deflect (bounce) and transmit vibration to the rider, this equates to a loss in energy. This is true for any tire. This means the rougher the road or trail, the more effort it takes with a tire/wheel that is 1- too narrow, 2 has too high of a PSI. these 3 factors are interdependent.

The MAX psi, simply means the safest tire pressure the tire can accommodate, it has no correlation to performance.

 

[François Pugh]

go to the link I provided, from there, look to the lower right hand side and start reading through the articles on tire pressure, width and so on. We posted up a bunch of PSI and tire width articles on another thread in the road bike section, I will cross post later. The long and short of it is, (and this is discussed in the mountain bike tire PSi article) that tires that have too high of a PIS, deflect (bounce) and transmit vibration to the rider, this equates to a loss in energy. This is true for any tire. This means the rougher the road or trail, the more effort it takes with a tire/wheel that is 1- too narrow, 2 has too high of a PSI. these 3 factors are interdependent.

The MAX psi, simply means the safest tire pressure the tire can accommodate, it has no correlation to performance.

Thanks, I will read the articles. I have found (on my road bike), that the higher the PSI, the less rolling resistance and the less hard I need to pedal to maintain a given speed. I have not noticed a point where more PSI equals less energy expended to maintain speed. Although I certainly noticed the bumps being transmitted to my forearms more with higher PSI.

EDIT: After reading some, I see I likely have a stiff tire; it's the ONE that fits my rim that I can find in my local Canadian Tire store (Kenda 27x1-1/4 Maximum Recommended Inflation Pressure 90 PSI). "Stiff tires are always slow." - Now I have a good excuse!

 

[Jersey Skier]

Everybody needs these.

 

[Ron]

@François Pugh

 

[Ron]

Everybody needs these.

I saw those a few weeks back. actually very cool but does anyone really need those?? I check my PSI before every ride and with the heat of the summer coming, I should adjust for temperature changes (legit issue in CO) but I dont

 

[Jersey Skier]

I saw those a few weeks back. actually very cool but does anyone really need those?? I check my PSI before every ride and with the heat of the summer coming, I should adjust for temperature changes (legit issue in CO) but I dont

If they weren't $200 I'd like these on my fat bike where a 1 or 2 psi change is very noticeable. On my other bikes, not so much.

 

[François Pugh]

Clearly I need a mountain bike.

 

[Tony S]

it's the ONE that fits my rim that I can find in my local Canadian Tire store

I'm tempted to ask whether you buy your ski gear at the same store where you get live bait, BB guns, and camo trucker hats.

 

[François Pugh]

I'm tempted to ask whether you buy your ski gear at the same store where you get live bait, BB guns, and camo trucker hats.

I am a skier. It's an obsession.

Biking is just something I do for fun and exercise now and then. I just can't justify diverting funds from my ski account for biking. Maybe if I quit drinking and going to rock concerts I could afford a mountain bike and proper tires, etc., but that's just crazy talk.

Never-the-less, it costs nothing to adjust the air pressure.

 

[Ken_R]

I saw those a few weeks back. actually very cool but does anyone really need those?? I check my PSI before every ride and with the heat of the summer coming, I should adjust for temperature changes (legit issue in CO) but I dont

Man, don't need em but want them! Cool gadget, they sell a similar product for air shock pressure monitoring on MTB's. I just see more things that can break and need batteries.

 

[martyg]

I saw those a few weeks back. actually very cool but does anyone really need those?? I check my PSI before every ride and with the heat of the summer coming, I should adjust for temperature changes (legit issue in CO) but I dont

Ron - If you ride road I also looked at road tires and the results were quite different

The day after I sat a wheel in the yard and went for the ride mentioned in the article a neighbor that I ride with was going out for a road ride. I checked his tire pressure before and after the ride, and the differences in temp and pressure were minimal. The next day I put a 26mm S-Works Turbo Cotton on a 50mm rim in the yard. Again, surface temp and air pressure differences were not huge.

My guess is that the 2.3" mtn bike tire shave such great surface area, and act as a much more efficient solar collector. The weather was virtually identical each day.

As far as a real time pressure gauge.... I can really feel when my tire pressure bumps up 20% from sun. The difference for me on a HT or FS with 100mm of travel is profound.

If anyone is interested, go into FB and follow Mountain Bike Specialists in Durango. My tech articles and other info lives there.

Enjoy.

 

[François Pugh]

I am a skier. It's an obsession.

Biking is just something I do for fun and exercise now and then. I just can't justify diverting funds from my ski account for biking. Maybe if I quit drinking and going to rock concerts I could afford a mountain bike and proper tires, etc., but that's just crazy talk.

Never-the-less, it costs nothing to adjust the air pressure.

Besides, what's so strange about buying a TIRE in CANADA at a store called CANADIAN TIRE eh?

 

[Crank]

On my mountain bike I squeeze the tires every week or so and if they feel soft I pump them up to about 36-40 according to the gauge on my floor pump.

On my road bike I check them almost every ride because I ride it a lot less. If they feel soft I pump them up to 90.

Not really planning on putting any more effort into finding the proper psi.

Then again I barely tune my skis either.

 

[Erik Timmerman]

I can't figure out why anyone would need the Tirewiz. Cool idea, but what does it do that I can't do with a plain 'ol pressure gauge. I do agree that pressure is important and I try to get it within +/- 1 psi on mountain bike. I just don't see what useful info the tirewiz could have for you.

 

[Ron]

My issue is that i dont ride with a pump, just a co2 cartridge and I'm not going to keep stopping and inflating/deflating the tires as I climb/descend or if the temp spikes and then drops. I dont carry a gauge, i can never find one that actually works. I use a prestaflator with a digital gauge on a compressor at home that is very accurate but when you take the valve off or on, you lose a pound or two so just how accurate can you be?