Not again...
I dropped out of the last tire argument because some really ridiculous things were said in a very contentious manner, and my words were twisted into things I clearly didn't say. I didn't check back, but I doubt that anything was resolved.
You can bring random facts to the fore, but you can't make any of these anomalies apply to a real world FE argument.
For instance. when a top-fuel dragster approaches the start line, the tire appears to be very low on air. It's squat to the ground, and you can see the stress in the sidewall. But when the light goes green the centrifugal force of the spinning tire sends the tread to the outside very forcefully, and the car seems to jump in the air as it moves very quickly for a quarter mile. To apply any of this to hypermiling your daily commute just won't work.
The race conditions of the Tour de France and the Leadville 100 are very different from each other, but Lance Armstrong has won both. The latter on a flat tire.
http://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb...lle-trail-100/
In a bicycle road race you do need traction, but the object is more one of as little RR as possible, and this is achieved by tire pressures well above 100lbs, resulting in a very tiny contact patch.
In a mountain bike race this would never work. The tires are knobby, not smooth, much fatter than road tires, and operating with much lower pressure.
So dragsters win races on tires that appear to be flat at the start line. Lance Armstrong wins the Tour de France on tires pumped up to 120-150lbs per square inch, and also wins the Leadville 100 on a rear tire that had maybe 2-3lbs in it. All interesting facts, but applying these facts to your daily commute to benefit your fuel economy will be even more interesting.
