tires

Tires are great. They’re the best. Per usual, Sheldon already wrote a million words on the topic. We rolled on pavement with 32mm width tires, and I wouldn’t recommend loaded touring on a narrower tire – I’ve done it on 25mm’s and the ride was noticeably much more harsh and we weren’t any speedier. Note that it’s non-trivial to determine the correct target inflation pressure – don’t just inflate to the rating on the side of the tire. The tire should noticeably bulge a small amount when you’re on the bike; inflating past this point will make the ride bumpier without actually decreasing rolling resistance.

Ideally, road tires should be completely smooth, but they are extremely hard to find, especially in wider sizes. The less tread you can find the better. For the first week of the trip we were on gravel/dirt paths and I used a 35mm cyclocross tire; Susan rolled on her 32mm knobbier-than-they-should-be road tires. Having a cyclocross tire is extremely nice on non paved bike path services, but Susan did just fine on her tires.

I think it’s worth the money to get tires with Kevlar or some other anti-puncture layer; in my experience they really decrease flat incidence. Susan already had tires without Kevlar so she used a Kevlar tire liner; these seem to work fine for preventing flats but are heavier and occasionally annoying if you do need to change a flat.

We both wore out our rear tire ~3000 miles into the trip. If you’re going cross country you probably won’t want to drag a spare along the whole way so keep an eye on tire wear so you can get one shipped ahead or replace while in a town with a bike shop. 700c tires wider than 28mm can be hard to find on the road.