DEPumped for TyreWiz 2.0
Zipp Engineer Dave Morse explains how monitoring tire pressure improves his ride.
Zipp engineer Dave Morse first put TyreWiz on his bikes out of curiosity and a bit of novelty. Then as the miles accumulated, he realized its utility before and during rides. Dave pumped up his tires until TyreWiz’s LED turned green. He made minor tire-pressure adjustments to optimize speed, rolling resistance, and handling. He monitored potential punctures on gravel. For the launch of the new TyreWiz 2.0, we talked with Dave about this handly small device:
How long have you been using TyreWiz?
I put TyreWiz on my bike soon after we started selling them. They are on all the wheels that I ride. It’s part of my kit, at this point. If my bike doesn’t have TyreWiz, I feel like I am riding without something.
Where do you have your tire pressure displayed on your head unit?
I have it on a secondary page. It’s not front-and-center because it does not change drastically during a ride. It will change and drift, which is fun to learn and see what causes that draft. Overall, I keep on the back page to check in if I have a bad wheel impact or if something doesn’t feel quite right. It’s nice have it handy as peace of mind; your pressures are where they’re supposed to be, and everything is stable.
Do you regularly use the ranges on your TyreWiz so it’s green when you’re in the correct range of tire pressure?
Absolutely, that is one of the most important and helpful features on TyreWiz. The LED status flash on the unit, on the wheel, so you actually don’t need to look at your pump gauge. You just inflate until your TyreWhiz flashes green.
What is your PSI range?
The pressure I run is pretty low. I keep it within a 5-psi band, high to low. So if I am running, nominally, 35 psi, that would be about 37 on the high side and 32½ or 33 on the low side. If I’m within that 5-psi band, that’s going to capture any natural variation in pressure due to temperature. That’s the main thing that is going to change your tire pressure. It tells me if I am outside of the 5-psi range on a ride that something is going wrong and I should think about stopping and checking it out.
You mentioned tire-pressure drift? What have you learned about that, how much can you expect pressure to change during a ride?
For road riding, 3 psi is possible if you’re going from an air-conditioned room where you’re pumping up your tires to outside on hot asphalt. You’ll see things start to heat up, and pressure starts to drift upwards.
It allows you to adjust your tire pressure very accurately and conveniently on the fly.
–Dave Morse, Zipp Senior Advanced Development Engineer
What are some situations during a ride where you’ll check your real-time tire pressure readings on your head unit?
It’s mainly as a confidence check that everything is stable. For me, halfway through the ride when I’m curious or insecure about what my tires are doing. Or, if you hit a huge pothole or big rock it’s reassuring to immediately swipe over to that page and monitor your tire pressure.
Did you use TyreWiz along with the Zipp tire-pressure calculator when you were fine-tuning your ideal tire pressure?
That is a huge benefit of TyreWiz. Go the the Zipp/AXS pressure guide and start there but play around with it. Start at the recommended pressure, and they maybe midride try dropping 3 psi at a time and see how that feels. The cool thing about TyreWiz is you can do that with great accuracy midride. You just look at the app on your phone.
One of the other things I appreciate about TyreWiz is it doubles as your pump gauge. Maybe you don’t have the fanciest pump in the world, but if you have a TireWiz you can rely on that as a highly accurate gauge.
The last thing I would say about TyreWiz is, it grows into an essential piece of kit. When I first put in on, it was a little bit of novelty. I wasn’t quite sure how much I was going to use it. But at this point, it’s a must have on my bike. It’s something I love to rely on, and if it’s not there I feel a little bit like I’m flying blind.