Racing Slick - Bicycle Tyres

Bicycle Tyres

In contrast, many bicycle tyres made for street use are slick. Aquaplaning does not present a problem for bicycles due to their narrower width, higher pressure, lower speed, and circular cross section (due to the need to lean the bicycle in turns), the bicycle tyre can penetrate the water layer to contact the road much more easily; in practice, grooved bicycle tyres do not outperform slick tyres on wet roads. However, many low and medium performance bicycle tyres have substantial tread depth, because the bicycles are designed with off-road excursions in mind, in dirt, gravel, or sand the tread provides significantly improved traction. In addition, high performance bicycle tyres, although designed for road use only, often have a very fine tread pattern, which appears to provide no difference in performance versus a slick tyre and is only there for marketing purposes and as a tyre-wear indicator. This is clear not only from direct testing of tyres, but also from the fact that the texture of the road is itself coarser than the supposed "tread" on these tyres. Some grooveless designs have small "holes" or dimples embedded in the tread as a tyre-wear indicator. This is similar to automobile tyre-wear indicator bars, which contact the road when the tyre is worn to a low tread amount, making the tyre noisy on the road.