@Pete Yeah it's very difficult to conceal a tire. At least side-walls could be spray painted black to hide manufacturers names, etc, but the tread design would still be noticeable, so there would need to be some integrity on the part of the testers to not look at the tire while stopped to try and figure out what they are riding. Maybe some sort of starting gate where the tired is concealed from view and testers don't look at the tire at the bottom of the run could work.
Re numbers, I just picked two out of the air. The $150 is of course reasonable for top shelf tire, at the $50 end I have no idea, maybe $75 is a better marker? The idea is simply to get a sense of how much extra performance you're getting for spending an extra $50-75 per tire.
In terms of contenders there's obviously Maxxis, Schwalbe and Continental at the pricey end and Specialized and Michelin somewhat close. At the other end maybe Onza, Vittoria and Vee Rubber?
The idea is not so much to find the best performing tire but which tire provides pretty good performance for a much lower price. Say can you get 80-90% of the performance for 40-60% of the price? Another thing I'd be curious about is if a brand new budget tire can outperform a worn high end tire. So maybe over their lifespan two budget tires will yield similar to better performance for more km's vs a high priced tire.
April 12, 2024, 8:51 a.m. - Mark
@Pete Yeah it's very difficult to conceal a tire. At least side-walls could be spray painted black to hide manufacturers names, etc, but the tread design would still be noticeable, so there would need to be some integrity on the part of the testers to not look at the tire while stopped to try and figure out what they are riding. Maybe some sort of starting gate where the tired is concealed from view and testers don't look at the tire at the bottom of the run could work. Re numbers, I just picked two out of the air. The $150 is of course reasonable for top shelf tire, at the $50 end I have no idea, maybe $75 is a better marker? The idea is simply to get a sense of how much extra performance you're getting for spending an extra $50-75 per tire. In terms of contenders there's obviously Maxxis, Schwalbe and Continental at the pricey end and Specialized and Michelin somewhat close. At the other end maybe Onza, Vittoria and Vee Rubber? The idea is not so much to find the best performing tire but which tire provides pretty good performance for a much lower price. Say can you get 80-90% of the performance for 40-60% of the price? Another thing I'd be curious about is if a brand new budget tire can outperform a worn high end tire. So maybe over their lifespan two budget tires will yield similar to better performance for more km's vs a high priced tire.