Thick and thin

Like many other kids, I too enjoyed playing with Lego. Between my sister and I, we amassed a large tub of pieces numbering probably a few thousand. But from all those pieces and countless possibilities I don't remember constructing much of anything that wasn't precisely prescribed by the instructions from the various sets we had. Never did it cross my mind that I could take the pieces from half a dozen individual castles and create one enormous one. Thus the toy so well known for fostering children's creativity was to me a vehicle for following someone else's vision and instructions.

Anyone paying attention at the time could have extrapolated that I'm not a terribly imaginative person. That people sometimes think that I do have lots of interesting ideas (as an adult) haven't caught on that what I really have are an interesting mix of sources. As Einstein is known to have said, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” Lately Laura has been reading a book on peak oil at my insistence. Surprisingly, she's enjoying it. Less pleasantly, she's told me that she now realizes that my ideas about our current civilization drawn from a comparative historical approach are not my own. So much for following Einstein's advice and hiding one's sources.

All this may seem like a strange way to introduce the topic of bicycle tire sizes, but there's a point here. It's easy to treat bicycles as I treated my Lego sets: something to be used as someone else envisioned. Watch a bike mechanic take apart or put together a bicycle and you realize just how interchangeable most everything on a bicycle is. Admittedly, most interchanging of parts is not something that typical people have an interest or need to do, and bike tinkering will and should remain squarely in the realm of the competitive and enthusiastic for the foreseeable future. However, there is one bit of tinkering that makes a whole lot of sense even for regular folk, and that is putting the best-sized tire on one's bike.

I'm writing mainly about road bikes here because it is road bikes that have so obviously fallen victim to a particular fashion that doesn't provide much real benefit. That fashion is the seat tube cut-out and the modern practice of using such tight clearances between tire and frame that most road bikes made today cannot be used with tires wider than the standard 700x23 slick or possibly the slightly larger 700x25. What makes this unfortunate is that for a great many people riding road bikes today, they should be using a larger—wider—tire.

The disadvantages of using a larger tire are purely performance-related. Larger tires are heavier and have more rolling resistance and are thus slower. Also, they make the bike harder to turn quickly around corners. Thus, if you're solely focused on speed, smaller, thinner tires are the way to go. Obviously, I'm not writing for you if you are one of these people. However, if you're not so focused on speed, then the advantages of using a larger tire are probably more beneficial than the disadvantages are detrimental. The advantages have to do with better control. Simply put, the fatter the tire, the more sand, gravel, and other road surface impedimenta it takes to cause the bike to lose control. I once crashed in a parking lot while riding 700x23-size tires for no reason than that my front wheel happened to fit within a groove between two slabs of pavement and I lost the ability to steer my bike. That wouldn't have happened with a bigger tire.

I personally happen not to be too afraid of crashing, but a lot of people do not adopt my reckless attitude towards cycling. For example, many triathletes are out there on the bike because, well, they have to be. Commuters tend to be more interested in getting to their destination in one piece rather than arriving at the fastest possible speed. Even many weekend cyclists clad in brightly colored Lycra and looking otherwise expert value safety over speed. For many people, cycling can be a downright nerve-racking experience. To anyone who feels this way, a bigger tire is probably the way to go.

But to equip a bicycle with a bigger tire, the tire must first fit. Most clincher rims will accept bigger tires, but many modern frames will not. This makes for an important thing to check for and consider when purchasing a bicycle: what largest size tire will the bicycle allow for? Buying a bicycle that fits a wide range of tire sizes will allow you to be creative later and make the bike what you want it to be and not just what the bike shop envisioned.