Your tires are slowing you down. Today we talk about the truth about tire width, PSI, and tubeless. Most cyclists, even racers, are riding the wrong tires this day. They're riding them at the wrong pressures and they're riding the wrong setups for their goals. Anthony, first question. It's a good one. Anthony, talk to me about tire setup. Tell me exactly what width, PSI, and tubeless or clincher. And that's from Gus. Feels like we've done tires to death, but it is something that comes up time and time again because it's so confusing and it's so nuanced and there's so many different aspects to something as simple as tires. The old school logic was really simple. Narrower tires equals faster. I used to race on 23 mil for the longest time, but time trials could have been 21, even 19 mil. But testing and real world data tells a different story. They were never the fastest. We just got it wrong for a long time. Wider tires, so you think 25s, 28s, or even 30 mil like we seen in Party Rube last weekend, actually roll faster on real world roads, especially at low pressures. And I know we're going to move on to pressures. It's because they deform less on the road. So, they absorb less road buzz. Less vibration, that means less energy, means more speed. But there's a caveat. If you go too wide on tires, you start to create aerodynamic drag and unnecessary weight. So, the sweet spot for road racers seems to be around 28 mil tires. Gravel. I had Dylan Johnson on two weeks ago on the podcast and Dylan Johnson thinks you should be going north of 47 mil. I rode 47 ms last year. On my factor gravel bike this year on the Reap, I'm going to go with mountain bike tires. I'm going to go for 2.2s or 2.1s. That's what Dylan Johnson is saying is the fastest tires. Mountain bike tires specifically because they have different casing on them which is lighter than gravel tires. But as much of a guru as Dylan Johnson is, if you go on to bicycle rollingresistance.com, it paints a more nuanced picture where not all casings are the same and different tires have different casings. So it's not strictly that a 2.1 or 2.2 mountain bike tire is going to be faster than a 47 mil. It depends brand specific, but in general, wider is better. Wider is better. Yeah, it does feel you explained it really well because it does feel a little bit counterintuitive. It just feels that the the tinier the size, the faster it feels. Two really probably dumb questions. Is every road bike going to be set up to take a 25 28 or a 30 mil? Because I know that that's a consideration in gravel. Like not every gravel bike will get a 2.2 mountain bike onto it. No. Especially you got to look up your advertised clearances. Your advertised clearance is normally a little bit less than your tire can actually take. I think it needs to have, someone will correct us in the comments, but I think it needs to have two mil on either side. So, if a bike is saying it clears 25 mil tires, it's probably clearing at least 28 mil tires, but you run the risk of damaging your frame then if there's a small bit of flex in it. But gravel bikes, and here's kind of my hot thesis, cuz the Reap that we're riding has amazing clearance on it. All the data shown that warrior tours are better, but the bikes haven't evolved. Some of the bikes that are still coming out, brand new bikes, can only have clearance for 43, 45 mil, which is small. As you said, we were on 47s all of last year. Like, it's small compared to what the data is saying on what's fastest. My working theory on this is the bike companies are sitting on a bunch of backstock. So, they don't want people to start switching to the wider tires until they've cleared that back. Skeptical skeptical conspiracy theory. Okay. So, next up is pressure. Because before I, you know, really understood what I was doing, I would get a skinny tire, pump it up to 100 PSI, and hope I could corner and keep pressure is where almost every rider still gets this wrong because they just kind of head out the door and they don't realize how much of a difference pressure makes to traction, to grip in the corner, and to the comfort of ride. High pressure feels fast, but it's actually costing you a lot of speed, especially on rough or uneven roads. running pressures that are too hard. They make the bike just bounce. Boom, boom, boom. They make it skip over imperfections and they rob you of that speed. And critically in corners, they rob you of control. What's the fix? Well, it's drop your tire pressure is the fix. And it's super complicated. And because of that, we spent a bit of time and we spent some resources to build a tire pressure calculator that's totally free.