HITTING THE PERFECT TYRE PRESSURE FOR EVERY RIDE

RIDE FASTER, FLAT LESS, CORNER HARDER, AND LOVE EACH RIDE JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE, PRO CYCLIST ALISON TETRICK HAS A MANTRA: LOWER TYRE PRESSURE, LOWER LIFE PRESSURE.

It’s a joke. Sort of. But not really. When she was racing the World Tour in the late 2000s, 23mm tyres pumped to a wagon-wheel rigid 120psi were standard fare. And it was terrifying.

Rock-hard tyres may sail over glass-smooth fresh asphalt, but put them on most well worn roads and they bounce like Super Balls over every imperfection and chatter through corners rather than conform to the road, ramping up your mental and physical fatigue. In 2017, Tetrick switched to gravel racing,

later saying, “I needed to lower the pressure in my life, and the tyre pressure in my wheels.” She was talking about switching to a racing discipline that was a bit more fun-forward than the pure road scene at the time. But she also found that lower tyre pressure literally lowered her stress levels on the bike… once she got used to it. “In my mind, ‘higher tyre pressure’ meant

‘fast’. So, my mechanic would want to put 35psi in my tyres for gravel, and I couldn’t fathom it. I’d be like, ‘...How about 40?’” “Lower tyre pressure is more comfortable and it’s more confidence-inducing for me, especially on rough descents,” Tetrick says, noting that she now also runs wider tyres and lower pressure on the road bike. “I run 30 to 32mm tyres with 60psi. I don’t pump up my tyres until they get below 50,” says Tetrick, who used to consider 90psi low. “More tyre patch on the road is also faster on bumpy roads.” So, should we all unscrew our collective