What is the actual difference between a $15 bike tire and a $60 one?
>In b4 price hurrdurr
weight
bead material
wanker factor
>>978620
Durable, light, cheap; pick two.
Of all the parts on the bike(for road cycling at least, dunno about MTB), the tires will probably make the biggest difference in comfort, with appreciable gains in performance as well.
>>978623
Durable, light/comfy/low rolling resistance, cheap pick two you mean.
>>978625
This guy gets it
>>978625
Also grip for cornering.
>>978623
I pick durable and light. Where do i cop?
>>978623
>Of all the parts on the bike(for road cycling at least, dunno about MTB), the tires will probably make the biggest difference in comfort, with appreciable gains in performance as well.
Yeah even going from a 60 tpi rubino to a 120 rubino pro will blow your mind
I would go full microshit + 120 TPI rather than ride 30 TPI + ultegra tqbhf
The difference is massive. You can't even compare a nice 320 tpi tire with latex tubes to <100 tpi tire with butyl tubes.
There used to be a massive advantage to tubulars over clinchers in feel but high quality clinchers with latex tubes almost reach the feel of good tubs nowadays. Tubs still have the advantage that you can run them at lower pressure and not have to worry about punctures.
I still ride tubulars because they provide the best ride. Refusing to ride on inherently unsafe carbon clinchers plays a pretty big part on that though. The extra work when I have to change tires isn't that bad and desu I kinda enjoy gluing my tires.
So, the higher the TPI the better the tire?
>>978712
Better ride but lower puncture protection
>>978714
Puncture protection depends on a lot of things, including on how well you look after your tires. Also there are quite a few high tpi tires that have really good puncture protection as long as you don't ride over nails and massive shards of glass. Those are mostly the roubaix/cobble specific tires.
Checking out your tires and making sure there are no rocks/glass shards/sharp objects embedded to the tire after every ride will massively improve your puncture protection, especially on tires that don't have extremely good protection to begin with.