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I think I've been running too much pressure on my tires. We all know higher pressure feels faster but in the real world isn't because despite lower rolling resistance vibrational losses will totally eat away any advantage there big time, not to mention the fatigue effects of added discomfort over longer efforts.
My question is thus - what would you imagine the optimal tire pressure for me to be? I'm currently running my 23mm Conti GP5K clinchers with tubes on 19mm internal rim width at 120 psi. I weigh 225lbs (I've gained like 20 pounds since last summer) - I think I must have misentered/misread some info when I used SRAM's calculator in the past to arrive at these figures as now it recommends closer to 100psi.
>Additional thoughts
I think I skewed above the recommended values (or at least how I remembered them) due to thinking that rolling resistance becomes a larger factor in the difficulty of an effort as the gradient increases - with more weight on the wheels especially. Yet conversely if the speed isn't particularly high those rolling resistances don't factor in as much? I used to run ~100psi when riding 28mm road tires and felt that was a good experience and equivalent . The other reason I've shied away from lowering the pressure is because I've had my share of pinch flats despite only riding a few thousand miles a year for a few years now.
I'm considering a switch to tubeless (my wheels are compatible and all the best tires on BRR are tested that way) and trying to figure out which pressures to compare or consider equivalent as I know one of the whole reasons to go tubeless is being able to run lower pressure for the same or better results. That or latex tubes but having to inflate your tires every day just sounds like an annoying chore. It makes tubeless maintenance seem not so bad given its infrequence and considering the added benefit of self sealing punctures and elimination of pinch flats (which were the source of nearly all flats I've encountered)
