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The amount of nonsense in that article is stunning
āThe frontal area of a 44 mm tire isnāt much larger than a 28 mm tire. (If a few millimeters made a huge difference, modern carbon bikes with wide down tubes would be slow.)ā
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Jan retconning the size of gravel tires is the most irritating shit. Nobody at any of those races he mentions was on 32s. The last issue Iāll ever read of BQ he had some garbage about āgravel grindersā debating 23s or 25s BITD 
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Nothing on your bike mattersā¦
UNLESS IT DOES
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Back in like 2015-2016 me and a buddy decided that 650bs were too slow for randonneuring - after we both had built bikes around the wheels - with the anecdotal evidence that none of the fast guys (except Jan and maybe 1-2 apostles) were on those tires.
I think he could have done 50 hours (or less) in 2 of the last 3 PBPs if heād been on skinnier tires.
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here is the one true test
get a tricycle. lock the handlebars so the thing can only go perfectly straight
on the left rear, put a skinny tire
on the right rear, put a fat tire
pedal it on perfectly flat ground
if you spin to the right, the skinny tire is faster
if you spin to the left, the fat tire is faster
science
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need to control for OD
wait, are you telling me a proper experiment controls for all variables? JAN YOU HAVE LED ME ASTRAY
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What always shocks me is that Jan likes shitting all over the steel drum testing, even though it more or less agrees with him:
(the forum throws a warning for this link because Heath posted it in November lol)
For basically the same tire at different widths, the wide tire has less resistance than the narrower tires at the same pressure. At realistic pressures there isnāt much difference in rolling resistance (for the pressures Iād run, the 23s would have slightly less resistance, but Iām not going to ride 23s). This is what he claims!!! The first rule of sciencing is to not shit on results that agree with yours!!!
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BRR suffers from severe chart abuse, in a lot of his comp tests.
Itās not a big difference when the differences are visually minimized, 10% seems pretty big.
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When Jan makes the chart:
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How wide were the offending tires? 650Ć25b (Schwalbe Ones) are pretty speedy little fuckers.
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42-48
Oh yeah, those are all slugs.
ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ Iām not really sure what the logic was behind the 650b worldās aggressive lunge to low pressure fatbike lyfe, but Iām pretty sure performance wasnāt part of it.
Short chainstays and underbiking. Thatās it. Thatās the reason.
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i think i secretly prefer 42 to 48. but the reen 48s are p nice
If Iām gonna put the little wheels on the road bike I want 48 or nothing. 42 feels closer to 32/36 without the aero and rolling resistance advantages.
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