Gravel Tire Longevity

Equipment
1

Good afternoon everyone. Got a question about gravel tire longevity. So far I have used Panaracer Gravelking SK 38s, Continental Terra Speed 35s and just mounted Continental Terra Speed 40s.

I mounted the 40s because I have a race coming up, and my pretty new 35s are already beat up.

This is what I mean by beat up and why I am probably prematurely switching tires:

I am hard on my tires, I bomb down hills and I have cuts all over them. I don’t pinch flat or anything as I run (probably too) high tire pressure. The last cut is pretty deep but the sealant got it, I didn’t even have to add air. The problem is, I don’t trust the tires once this happens. I feel like they’re compromised at this point.

I guess I am looking for opinions from the group about their own tires. Are you running battle wounded tires? Do you run them until they are catastrophically torn? Do you just let the wounds build up and replace the tire when the tread is gone? These aren’t thorn punctures I am talking about, but cuts and gouges from sharp rocks.

Tires aren’t easy to find and its also expensive replacing them for every race. My fear is flatting out of the lead and the self punishment I’ll dole out if it was because I was too cheap to replace a tire.

Thanks in advance!

2

My methodology has been this:

I run them until they appear unsafe for any ride or race that isn’t a A race. Punctures and cuts that have sealed have never caused me concern.

When it comes to A events. I usually put brand new tires on about a week or two prior to the event. For reference my A events tend to be 150+ miles so I’m not willing to try and eek another ride out of a set with 2k miles.

1 Like
3

My understanding was that the Terra Speeds are very fast wearing racey tires - almost feel like road tires.

My gravel tires have tended to last forever. It took 3 years to wear out my first set. I rode on dirt/gravel 99.9% of the time - no pavement. I’ve had Clement/Donnely MSO and EMP tires. The only issue I had was that my tires had a million holes in them from goat heads but the sealant fixed all of them.

If you ever get a cut just in the top rubber tread, you can super glue it together.