So just received mine from Germany–>thanks for the link. Took 1.5 weeks from order date to my door, $30 shipping and international change on my card. Ordered 4 race kings and that came out to be $54 a tire. Be hard to beat that. Also just received an email that bike tires direct has them in stock if anyone needs them faster
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Newbie question! For context, gravel rides on my Crux usually have at least 60% pavement and lots of hills. My gravel is really rough.
A Race King at 25 PSI has 15.7 watts of rolling resistance. The Terra Speed 45mm tan wall at 23 PSI has 18.9 watts of rolling resistance. Does that mean when riding on the road at similar pressures, the Race King has 3.2 watts LESS rolling resistance and should therefore be faster on the road?
You need to think also the aerodynamics of the tyre, not just the rolling resistance.
The Swiss side comparison:
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Yes. Race Kings roll really good on pavement. I did a ride on 47 Pathfinders then Race Kings and the Race Kings rolled noticeably faster.
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I personally would not trade compliance for Aero (within reason of course). Plus I just run Aerobars which have a much greater affect than tires/frame.
Maybe my brain is not functioning correctly, but would you run a 2.2 tire at 25 psi, and a 45 mm tire at 23 psi? I was typically under the impression that you should run larger width tires at a lower PSI.
I ‘think’ you’d need to compare like a Race King at 25 PSI vs a 45mm Terra Speed at 28-30 PSI.
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I was just quickly trying to find a comparable low tire pressure for both tires.
It’s wild to me that a wider and knobbier tire with the same black chili tire compound has lower rolling resistance.
It is the casing that makes the difference more than the compound (and definitely the tread).
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Yeah, everyone has been grappling with this concept all year.
Think of it this way, the fastest XC tires are (able to be) constructed to a finer balance between speed and puncture protection than most of the fastest gravel tires. This seems to be changing, but it’s always going to appear to be a lag based on the BRR historical results.
Otherwise, the BRR Mountain Bike testing tab has wildly out of line pressure test values. 25-55 is much too high and should have been corrected to a more reasonable pressure range as he did with CX and Gravel tires a few years ago.
25psi for a MTB tire (even on pavement) is much closer to the maximum pressure most people are going to run, than the lowest pressure.
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BRR also tests the MTB tires on a really narrow rim…their testing protocol is invalid. Pressures too high on a narrow rim will make the tires shape be unlike the shape it holds when being ridden in the real world, so the results don’t matter.
BRR have already tested the effect of rim width actually, albeit with rim widths up to 26mm only.
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And keep in mind, Keegan had a mechanical this year (rode on a flat, solo, for a while). Had he broken the record, no telling how many drop bar mountain bikes we’d see in 2025.
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Seems like we have a consensus. Yes and the 2 fastest and best tires are the TB’s and RK’s
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Well maybe not in an absolute sense. Nothing fast about getting a flat tire, but probably the fastest while inflated.
Thought I would shout out some really well done off-road Chung method testing done by John Karrasch (@flexfitbyjohn) • Instagram photos and videos
particularly these two posts:
- https://www.instagram.com/p/DCk8GlQxuq9/?img_index=1
- https://www.instagram.com/p/DDTItL5xbWO/?img_index=1
Shocker: The Race King is the fastest gravel tire. Among the tires tested, the second fastest was the 2.4 Peyote. The test was less kind to my Terra Hardpacks, as these were actually slower than the 45mm Terra Speeds.
Additional take away: The increase in CRR when going from category 1 gravel to category 2 was twice as high on the narrower tires compared to the Peyote.
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I’ve been following this on Facebook and while it’s an interesting experiment, the fact that he is unwilling to share the tire pressures he used makes it more of a curiosity than a useful trial to generalize.
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The Race Kings have shown to be fast in a bunch of tests. And from my own experience, they’ve been the fastest MTB tire I’ve ridden. If I could fit them on my gravel bike, that’s what I’d ride.
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I like what hes doing, but those wattages are so close…i think the margin of error has to be ± 10 watts at power that low. I hope hes not using gps for speed, as that would also introduce more error.
Since the Conti Race Kings 2.2 won’t fit in my Crux, but Thunder Burt 2.1’s apparently will, I am likely going to give them a shot next year.
But damn, someone really needs to find a way to name tires without all the confusions. Super Ground, Super Race, with Addix Speed compound, without, etc.
Can the MTB guys help me out? It seems like the fastest option is actually the Super Ground with Addix Speed compound…which is weird because you would expect the Super Race (w/ addix) to be faster (and the Super Race is lighter).
Can anyone confirm the above that the Super Ground Addix is the fastest version? I know Dylan and others have said “just get the one with the red stripe”, but it seems that indicates the Addix compound and is therefore on both the Super Race and Super Ground versions.
Help a roadie / gravel guy out!! 
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The fastest Thunder Burt is the Superground with the Addix speed compound.
So black sidewalls, with the red stripe.
Schwalbe is thankfully going away from these names. The new Rick XC tire doesn’t have all these confusing additives to it’s name.
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