Why does tire weight matter to you?

ccand51997 wrote:I looked all over that site before I posted and did not find any direct liteskin vs. snakeskin versions other that the monster fat bike tires. 

Yeah,  it's not so obvious, since he doesn’t name them Snakeskin. The new name is just TLE. Basically, all the top end Schwalbe mtb tires are snakeskin, unless named something else, like LiteSkin or super gravity.
This is the article:

https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/mtb-reviews/compare/schwalbe-racing-ralph-liteskin-addix-speed-2017-vs-schwalbe-racing-ralph-tle-addix-speed-2017-vs-schwalbe-racing-ralph-tle-addix-speedgrip-2017

I should note that the rolling resistance tests there, and on Tom Anhalt’s site , are done are fairly high pressures. In that case, both rubber compound and tire flexibility (casing flexibility and rubber thickness) matter. I strongly suspect, that when you drop way down into CX level pressures, like some gravel riders do, the flexibility part starts to dominate, and compound becomes less important.

To me- this is more a question of rolling resistance than speed.
I just did a test on a 1200 foot steep climb- Did it once with a hardtail that weighs just over 18 lb. Did same climb on a full suspension bike that weighs 6 lb more.
I was abut 75 seconds (normalizing power between the two).
Various calculators says the difference should be only 35-40 seconds.
So the difference has to be rolling resistance.
The hardtail has Schwable Racing Ron/Ralph. Both known to be fast tires.
Full sus has Maxxis Ikon and Ardent. Not terrible but known to not be such fast tires.

Apply this to gravel I think there are also fast and slow tires.
But the thing to consider with gravel is that some of the faster tires could be slower because they lack tread (and that is what makes them fast)- But they are only fast o the smoothest of surfaces.

I have settled on Maxxis Rambler in 700x40mm. From what I have tested they are the fastest 700x40mm with decent tread and cut resistance.

ccand51997 wrote:This occurred to me as I saw yet another person say they would weigh their tires when they came new.  Why do people care about this?  Wheel, tire and rotational weight is one of the great myths of cycling performance and yet, it still lives and thrives in modern cycling.  In case that is news to you, here is the math:

http://biketechreview.com/reviews/wheels/63-wheel-performance

In case you don't want to wade through the article, here is a summary.  Reducing the weight of the wheelset by 50 percent resulted in a decreased wattage needed to maintain the same speed of less than half of one watt.  Now, 50 percent is huge.  That is like have a 2000 gram wheelset and a 1000 gram wheelset and yet that difference only resulted in an 1/2 watt performance increase.  

Thus my question.  If 1000 grams barely makes any difference, how is a couple of hundred grams either way in your tire going to matter?  

Slim wrote:

Yeah,  it's not so obvious, since he doesn’t name them Snakeskin. The new name is just TLE. Basically, all the top end Schwalbe mtb tires are snakeskin, unless named something else, like LiteSkin or super gravity.
This is the article:
 I strongly suspect, that when you drop way down into CX level pressures, like some gravel riders do, the flexibility part starts to dominate, and compound becomes less important.

I wondered if that was how he designated them with the tle instead.  In any case, that indicates that it is worth up to 1.5 watts per tire, which is not huge, but not nothing either.  That is similar to the Conti Protection vs. Non protection lining wattage loss.  I think it ends up being a wash because my Thunder Burt LiteSkin is weeping sealant now after a year and my two-year old G-One Speed Snakeskin look almost like new (the tread is worn but the sidewall is pristine).

I agree with you about tire pressure.  I run my tires at 20 psi max and have tested for tire pressure numerous times without any differentiation between pressures.  I tried 50 psi (in a Conti Raceking 2.2) 30, 20 and then a really extreme low 6-8 psi and not one of those pressures was faster than the other.  So either it really doesn't matter at all, or the difference is so small that I can't measure it with the instruments available to me. 

boots2000 wrote:To me- this is more a question of rolling resistance than speed.
I just did a test on a 1200 foot steep climb- Did it once with a hardtail that weighs just over 18 lb. Did same climb on a full suspension bike that weighs 6 lb more.
I was abut 75 seconds (normalizing power between the two).
Various calculators says the difference should be only 35-40 seconds.
So the difference has to be rolling resistance.
The hardtail has Schwable Racing Ron/Ralph. Both known to be fast tires.
Full sus has Maxxis Ikon and Ardent. Not terrible but known to not be such fast tires.

Apply this to gravel I think there are also fast and slow tires.
But the thing to consider with gravel is that some of the faster tires could be slower because they lack tread (and that is what makes them fast)- But they are only fast o the smoothest of surfaces.

I have settled on Maxxis Rambler in 700x40mm. From what I have tested they are the fastest 700x40mm with decent tread and cut resistance.

Well, doing a quick rule of thumb that I use, I agree the weight difference should have been 25-30 seconds.  One pound on a 7 percent grade is about a 1 watt difference.  The tires are giving up between 4 and 8 watts front ikon/rear ardent.  I've never tried a Maxxis tire because I've never seen one test fast. I would guess much more of the loss was due to rolling resistance.

boots2000 wrote:

Apply this to gravel I think there are also fast and slow tires.
But the thing to consider with gravel is that some of the faster tires could be slower because they lack tread (and that is what makes them fast)- But they are only fast o the smoothest of surfaces.

I have settled on Maxxis Rambler in 700x40mm. From what I have tested they are the fastest 700x40mm with decent tread and cut resistance.

Yup.  If you can hear a tire, its your legs that are creating the power to make that sound.  But ya know, if the gravel is bigger than your tread, you aren't really loosing anything.  My rule of tumb is my tread should match the roughness of the surface.  My Thunder Burts are not particularly fast on pavement, but don't seem to slow me down at all on gravel.

Conti made a comment that while their bigger tires might lose 1-2 watts on their rollers, they had a huge 20 watt advantage on the cobbles.  

I do like the Ramblers, and have not had any problems with them.  They do strike me as fragile though.  Always had-pin prick seepage after a long ride, and one of them oddly started blistering under the tread - unlike the Schwalbe's that are heavier but can hold air without sealant.

Now I'm trying the new Conti Terra-speed.  Better rolling resistance and puncture resistance than the Ramblers - seem to be a good replacement so far, although in practical terms there isn't much of a difference between the two (except for the thin casing on the Ramblers).

The author of that piece tried very hard to make it look very scientifical, but then ruined it with this snippet: "Based on the model developed in Appendix A, and data I have collected while riding (velocity and elevation profiles),

"...data I have collected while riding" means that his n=1 -- and, since he was not in a lab, he could not possibly have held other variables constant.

Koyote wrote:The author of that piece tried very hard to make it look very scientifical, but then ruined it with this snippet: "Based on the model developed in Appendix A, and data I have collected while riding (velocity and elevation profiles),

"...data I have collected while riding" means that his n=1 -- and, since he was not in a lab, he could not possibly have held other variables constant.

That ‘data collected while riding’, refers to the speeds and elevation profiles. That is perfectly fine. That is not an experiment, where sample size is indeed, that is just creating a profile of a ride that you are modeling. If you want to calculate it for a different terrain or riding speeds, you can enter those numbers in the model, and calculate that.

I don’t think he did any testing himself.

It doesn't matter to me like some. I'll even seek heavier tires. I don't like flat tires, I like traction when needed, and control when leaned over. Someone here questioned my liking and promoting a heavy tire but it's a very reliable, doesn't leak, has lean over and climbing traction off of pavement. 

There were times earlier in life when I was curious enough to weigh parts and consider weight more with purchases but I guess somewhere around age 60 I turned more into a just ride your bike type person.