With Paris-Roubaix fast approaching, the one subject on everyone’s lips, as always, is tyre width.
Over the years, road bike tyres have been getting wider and wider, and thanks to the bone-shaking cobbled terrain along the course, Paris-Roubaix has always been the race to find the widest, as riders seek the extra cushioning and rolling resistance benefits.
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Article 1.3.018 of the UCI’s equipment regulations states:
“Wheels of the bicycle may vary in diameter between 700mm maximum and 550mm minimum, including the tyre.”
Unfortunately for anyone hoping to run a 40mm this weekend, a 40mm tyre on a standard road wheel (of 622mm diameter) has a total diameter of 701mm.
It will vary from tyre to tyre, and if you put a 40mm tyre onto a wider rim, you might sneak it under 700mm, but the ability for a team to do this will depend on multiple other factors, as we’ll get to below.
What is the widest tyre we’ll see?
To work out the diameter of a wheel & tyre together, the formula is:
D = Rd + 2(TT)
Where D = diameter, Rd = Rim diameter, and TT = tyre thickness.
But finding the tyre thickness isn’t as simple as finding its width. The two…
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