Feel free to delete if this has already been posted but I didn’t couldn’t find it yet. I’m wondering what everyone’s take on the latest cycling news tire test that showed gravel tires got slower at every width up until the point where you put on MTB tires.
I got a pair of 50mm Schwalbe G-One R Pros for my Stigmata. I’m wondering if I should have just went with the 45s. My A event this year is SBT GRVL (black course). I might do Big Sugar later in the year. I switch to something with more tread for that though.
Sorry, I know it’s paywalled. I was frustrated I couldn’t read it until I remembered you could read cycling news articles if you have an Apple News+ subscription.
I don’t know why they would have thought that to begin with because no one with credibility has said that wider is ALWAYS faster. They are doing what cyclingnews always does, just looking for clicks. As with a lot of things, the answer to what gravel tires to run has always been….it depends. It depends on the category of gravel you will be on, how sharp or not the rocks are, how flat or climby the course/area is, how much pavement is included, etc.. There are some 40’s that are fast and there are some 40’s that are slow. There are some 2.2’s that are fast and there are some 2.2’s that are slow. The tire itself and the compound it has makes a huge difference. There’s no blanket “this size is the fastest tire”.
I don’t think this article provides reasonable argument to support changing from 50 to 45 unless you are doing an event with a significant amount of high speed solo riding on smooth pavement. The potential marginal drag is too small relative to the potential marginal suspension losses.
What it does provide is more evidence for what we already have in abundance. Vittoria gravel tires are relatively slow, moreso compared to their newer XC tires. Gravel and XC are still different classes of tire with very different design. Using a large diameter roller designed to mimic cobblestones can produce confusing data. Bicycle pop-science news outlets continue to struggle with identifying differences in tire construction across a group of tires under the same product line.
Not to denigrate the article, it’s another piece of the mental puzzle riders can construct and test both in their mind and in the real world. I think that until “we” are able to produce, and see, specific suspension loss and aerodynamic heatmaps for given courses much of this sort of testing remains interesting but ultimately less relevant than it appears.
If you have not already read them, the two previous CN SS-PER provide some balance:
I’d take anything the Silverstone sports engineering hub come out with, with a pinch of salt. They seem to struggle with basic experimental design and reporting and replication.