Do wider tires wear better?

Question

I'm interested in road bike tires and how width affects how long they last.

It seems common-sense that a wider tire would wear better, as there's simply more of it to "spread" the wear, but I'd like to know if this is true in practice. Answers based on experience or actual studies/research would both be interesting.

I'd normally run wider tires at a lower pressure appropriate to the load, but this may make comparison harder.

Could braking and cornering have different effects on tire wear? For example, perhaps wider tires wear less in braking, but more due to cornering. If this was the case then the answer might depend on how much braking/cornering the rider does. There might also be a difference between the front and back tire.

Answer 1

While I'm not a road biker, I can speak from experience with mountain bike tires. The first spot to wear is the center of the tread. Why? It's the part that is ridden on the most. Increasing the width of your tire with increase the contact patch (the part of the tire touching the ground); therefore, your wear is going to be the same because that contact patch is still hitting the ground the same amount. That said, the amount of pressure put on that contact patch can change due to width, as the mass of the bike and rider is spread across the larger area.

Tire pressures can affect your contact patch as well, lower pressures allow more of the tire to hit the road or trail. This means your going to expose more of the tire to wear, increase grip (in the case of mountain tires, don't know about road so much), and increase rolling resistance.

Other wear patterns will depend on the type of terrain and riding style. If you ride on very smooth asphalt, you probably aren't going to wear through a tire that fast, but if you ride on loose, rocky, beat-up roads, that's going to eat at the rubber much more quickly. Similarly, if you do more straight-line riding you're most likely going to see the center wear quicker than the sides, but if you turn more (or skid a lot when braking into turns) you can wear down the sides quite a bit too. There are other environmental factors to consider as well (heat, humidity, etc.) that can affect tire wear, but those are much harder to quantify.

I would look more into finding specific types of tire, maybe ones that address the hard/softness of the rubber instead of looking for wider tires. Also try experimenting with tire pressures outside of what you're doing now. If you want some hard numbers, I would recommend looking at specific tire manufacturers who may have testing data available and estimated mileage charts for certain riding conditions.

Answer 2

All of my biking is on the road. I usually run a 1 1/4 inch tire on the rear, and consistently get 2000 miles until the cords begin to show.

This year I am running on 1 3/8 inch tire, and I now get 2100 miles until the cords show.

The difference between 1 1/4 and 1 3/8 isn't much, mathematically speaking, but it looks much wider than the numbers indicate.

My friends and I all agree that the biggest advantage to running a wider tire is that they are more forgiving. i.e. They can take more abuse.

Regarding the comment below on the Schwalbe's. I've been using Continental's (Highway 2) for years. I can almost set my odometer by when they wear out. 2000 miles = cords showing. (rear tire)

I did some checking. Continental has a huge assortment of tires, and their marketing blurbs are nearly worthless. I think the reason for my low mileage is that I am using their Contact 2 tire, which I think is meant to give better traction on wet pavement, but I am not sure about that. If I am not mistaken, I should be using their Touring Plus tire for better wear, but I am not sure about that either. Their web site isn't very informative.

Answer 3

Common sense says you're correct in your assumption of wide tires wearing more slowly. The middle of the tire will wear rapidly to take the crown off of the tire. Then, once the crown is flattened out and the wear shifts towards the sides of the tire, the wear slows down significantly. There are so many variables for tire wear it isn't funny. You have front versus rear wear patterns, weight of the rider, weight of the bicycle and any accessories mounted to the bike, and of course, the riding conditions like temperature and road surface.

And you also must take into consideration the quality of the tire itself, including the construction technique. Probably the most important factor for any tire would be the maintainence factor. Proper pressure and inspection should make any tire last longer. Back in "the day" when radial tires were available, they had much better tire wear, no matter what the width, than regular tires.

I have a 1985 Miyata LT1000 touring bike that came equiped with radial tires. I wish now I would have purchased a couple dozen of those tires! They're 700c x 32c. I have replaced the rear tire several times, but the front tire is still the original Made in Japan tire that now has in excess of 26,000 miles on it! It shows very little wear to this day. Not even sun damage like cracking is visible so far.

As with automobile tires, the wider the tire, the less pounds per square inch on the road surface, the slower the wear. That's why wide tires are no good on snow or icy roads. They have less traction on the surface.

The higher the air pressure you run in your tires, the more quickly they will wear out because there is less tire in contact with the road surface. The center of the tire will wear down to the carcass quicker. Once the carcass is exposed, the tread left at the sides doesn't matter.

Answer 4

Do wider tires wear better?

Joining the consensus that All Things Being Equal wider tires will last longer than a narrow tire.

My contribution to the discussion is a badly drawn diagram that attempts to illustrate how it is that a wider tire is able to last longer.

If I had made the drawing to scale the two tire patches would have the same area - just a different shape.

By definition, wider tires will have shorter contact patches and, hence, less tire deflection; if the tire pressure is the same, the area of the contact patch must be the same to support the same load. The shorter the contact patch, the lower the vertical depth of tire deflection; the internal friction and hysteresis within the tire’s materials is lower.
VeloNews - Resistance is Futile: How tire pressure and width affect rolling resistance

In this idealized situation both tires would leave behind the same amount of rubber.
On the narrow tire there is less tire to wear and the wear is focused on a narrow section of the tire so the wider tire would last longer.

Could braking and cornering have different effects on tire wear?

Braking and cornering increase tire wear.
Since a wider tire has more rubber to leave behind ATBE a wider tire would last longer than a narrow tire with the same amount of braking and cornering.

There might also be a difference between the front and back tire.

Most styles of bike during normal riding have more weight on the rear tire than the front. This would increase wear on the rear tire because the size of the tire patch would increase. Since the wider tire has more rubber to leave behind ATBE the wider tire would last longer.

Answers based on experience or actual studies/research would both be interesting.

An ATBE answer is one thing. Comparing real world experience is much harder, maybe impossible.

Here are a few reasons comparisons / research is problematic.
As others have said - the number of variables that come into play for a tire wear equation is large.
For the same tire maker of the same tire model are tire thicknesses the same for all of the tire widths? Probably sometimes, maybe.
Tire makers constantly change tire construction methods over time even for the same model.
How often will people ride a wider tire at the same pressure as a narrow tire?
How would we account for the variety of road surfaces?