Is a MTB tire the fastest and best tire for Gravel racing?

Lance Haidet had 2.2 front, 47 rear.
I just received but haven’t yet mounted some 2.1 Mezcals. I will let you know next week.

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Yeah, Sarah Sturm is running a 2.2 Renegade and a 47 Pathfinder….but I know you can go wider than a 47, just not certain how much wider.

Will be interesting to see how the Mezcals work out!!

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Not sure if a diverge fork is tighter than a crux, but heres a mezcal on a 25 iw rim

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There’s always a chance it was one of his pranks on people, but Keegan posted a reel of his set up. 2.4 aspen on the front and 2.0 ikon on the rear.

Pretty sure the Crux uses a different fork than the Diverge….but that is TIGHT!

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Crux fits 2.1 Thunder Burt upfront with no problem.

I ordered a 2.2 Fast Trak and 2.25 Severe for the front to see if/how they fit.

Will keep rear on 47mm Rhombus (to pair with Fast Trak) and also ordered a 50mm Ravager (to go with Severe) for the wet muddy winter season.

So many tires :star_struck:

2.1 TB on Crux fork

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Rim width?

These are on Terra CLX 25mm

FWIW, I’m running 650bs on my gravel bike, and I have the 27.5 versions of the Conti Race King ProTection 2.2 and the Schwalbe Thunder Burt 2.1. On 25mm ID rims, both measure true to size (55.6 mm for the RK and 53.2 mm for the TB)

Yeah, I figured that would be OK up front based on posts from Big Sugar.

What about the rear? Did you use a 2.1?

I keep trying my 650b wheels and for anything that is relatively fast, they are just slower.

Did a fairly large group ride today and they were definitely more work. They shone in some areas of the trails, but for the most part, it wasn’t worth the trade off.

I used 2.1 TB in the back yep. But it rubs slightly so I cut down the outside knobs. The setup worked great for my summer dry rocky terrain here. But it would be too close for mud, so will switch to 47mm in the back for the winter.



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I ran race kings at Big Sugar yesterday, no issues and felt fast and confident all day. But I was on my FS XC bike as a bit of an experiment, so I had plenty of cush in both the tires and the bike. Zero regrets on bike and tire choice, made the day feel pretty easy and it’s by far the best my body has felt after a 100+ mile gravel race. My immediate thought after the race was that I should run the same setup at unbound next year (but add aero bars, which weren’t allowed at big sugar)

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2.1 Mezcals on the rear of my crux. Tire hairs are rubbing the chainstays and just tickling the seat tube.

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Definitely tight…but doable in the right conditions. Thanks for posting the pics.

What IW rims are you using?

They are on the stock Roval rims that came with the bike.

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Just for S&G’s I grabbed a pair of 2.25 Aspens that were in the garage and tried them on my Revolt(back tire first). It is tight, but there is no rubbing when either on the workstand spinning or when I rode around a bit. Going to see how it rides tomorrow, but a 2.1 on this bike would very easily fit. Wheels have internal rim width of 24.

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Because it is so tight - and I was having second thoughts on using the rear do to potential damage, I just had the idea to get some paint protection film and I will install that on the areas that I want to protect back there.

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Assuming “wider is better,” why are we not running 650b wheels/tires? DJ was one of the first pushing bigger=faster, but now it seems the entire Lifetime series is running the fattest tires they can fit. The benefits of the fast MTB tire are 1) more volume allowing lower tire pressure and 2) more supple casing/lower rolling resistance. The challenge, of course, is accommodating these large tires in a gravel frame without making other design compromises.

If you have a gravel frame from the last ~5 years, it was likely designed around a 700c 40mm tire. Using Silca’s calculator (200lb system weight, Cat3 gravel, tire spec dimensions), that gives a pressure of 35 psi. Increase to 700c 56mm (e.g. 2.2 Conti Race King) and you get 19 psi. Change wheelsize and 650b 56mm gives you 20 psi. Of course, the 2.2" on a 650b will be closer in diameter to the original 700c 40mm, so the bike’s effective geometry and handling will be better retained.

Bikes that are designed around the big tires (e.g. Lauf Seigla) make sense, but on a frame designed for 40mm tires, a wide tire on a 650b seems to be a better solution than trimming tire knobs to clear the frame. (Of course, you need to buy the wheels, tires, etc…) I know the angle-of-approach argument, but this isn’t MTB… I don’t think it would be significant.

The other interesting thing is a bit of a gap around 50mm/2.0" for fast tires. If we had a 50mm Conti Terra Speed or Schwalbe G-One RS or a 2.0 Race King Protection etc, there would be more out-of-spec but OK in the dry set-ups. As is, there is a jump from 45 (or 47 Pathfinder) to 2.1 TB.

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Good observation. And this speaks directly about the fine, blurry line between “Gravel” and “MTB”

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