Let’s talk tires and tubes

The Bülk came, from the factory, with Schwalbe One tires up front, with butyl tubes and a tubeless Conti Grand Prix 5000 on the back. I wanted something faster for the time trial on the Indianapolis 500 racetrack, so I made two changes. I went with GreenSpeed Scorchers and RevoLoop Ultra tubes. Most people are familiar with the Scorchers, but the RevoLoop Ultra tubes are pretty new.

RevoLoop Ultra tubes are made of thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers. TUP is far lighter than butyl, and even latex, but is supposed to be tougher than either. I don’t know about tougher yet, but I immediately felt the weight difference. These tubes are a mere 21g in the 20″ size. The same butyl tube is 80-100g. The rotational weight difference is huge. Add the Scorchers, and good things happen.

How good?

My commute to work, including stop lights and signs, cross streets, etc., is just under 17.5 miles. Riding on streets instead of bike paths (to cut out the slower riders and people pushing strollers and walking dogs variables), my best time in the Bülk, in the original configuration, was always just over an hour, from 1:00:13 to about 1:03.

Change tires and tubes, pump everything up to 100psi, and what happens?

0:54:01

(that’s moving time, not including stopped time.) That’s a 10% advantage just from a tire and tube change.

I don’t know how delicate the Scorchers are, or if they’ll lead to a whole bunch more tire changes than the Ones, but the speed feels great. If I commute by car it takes 40 minutes. The fact that I can get there by bike, and have a great ride, in just a few minutes more makes me smile.

Here’s a Relive of the run:

And here’s the Strava report: