Tyre width

[Hot Flatus]

Yes. They are called tubeless.

Hmm, not always reliable

I've had 2 non sealing punctures, both slashes

Sure, but no tyre will survive a slash.

I reckon a fair proportion of my tubed punctures have been snakebites, which are next to impossible with tubeless. Given the state of local roads I'm quite grateful for tubeless, especially on club rides in a tight pack.

Anyway, on width, I resisted the trend for fatter tyres but I'm heading that way these days, probably because of road conditions.

[ElyDave]

Don't misunderstand me, I'm very much a tubeless convert, but under no impression that they are infallible

[Joe.B]

My road bike, (Thorn Audax), is running 30mm on the rear and 28mm up front as that the biggest I can go with mudguards. It currently runs on Panaracer Gravel Kings, (the almost slick one with the fine file tread), which are the nicest, (narrow), tyres I've run. Given the state of the roads these days if I could go wider I would.

[hubner]

As mentioned by a couple of people, tyre construction is more important than width.

On my 80s steel racing frames, I use:

Veloflex "open tubulars" marked as 25 but actually 22.7mm on my 20mm wide rims (outside measurement).

Panaracer Pasela, again marked as 25 but actually 22.7mm on the same rims.

The Veloflex is for dry roads and the Pasela for wet.

On a bike which I don't use much, I've 21.5mm tubulars (Vittoria Corsa) on 20mm and 18mm rims (Mavic GEL280, CX18).

A long time ago, I had 28mm tyres on a 26mm rim and I thought they were huge!

Having said all that, my ebike has 42mm tyres that are similar to the Marathon Plus, but they don't really count as I wouldn't ride them unassisted.