What data did DJ come up with that showed thinner tires were faster on gravel?
I don’t think you read the article or listened to the podcast, because there were plenty of qualifications made about the conclusions. No one is saying these tests were the definitive or final determination.
Ignoring the Silverstone results, entirely, is probably the best option right now. DJ’s test and the Cyclingnews test produced results that were opposite each other, and at the same time each result went against prior testing. The SSE-PER don’t seem applicable, because what can be applied from the two tests?
If you showed a tire enthusiast the points above and told them one tire was a Race King and the other a Terreno Dry they’d say obviously because the Race King would have the good result and the Terreno Dry the bad. Which is opposite of what the SSE-PER actually found.
Obviously these results are influenced by the tires themselves, but when DJ was testing what is generally considered the 2nd fastest XC tire, and CN was testing one of the slower XC tires - the relevance of both tests is questionable.
And this is before the issues that come from the cobbled surface used. Fundamentally, the SSE-PER is another type of roller test, and there isn’t enough data to tell if we should pay attention, or not.
So the Race Kings and Burt’s really are faster than the gravel tires on pavement as well?
I don’t think the semantics of calling a tire “MTB” or “gravel” really matters. We are just trying to find the fastest tires for given conditions.
Rolling resistance wise… yes.
It’s obviously horses for courses, what we need is a best bike split, with sectors outlined by % category, i.e cat 1-4 gravel, road. with the ability to pick a best tyre for a certain sector, or best tyre for overall time.
There are just too many variables in parcours for the RK to be the golden bullet.
Great stuff, just really needs some more skinny tyres. Some 40mm/43mm options like a Schwalbe G1 RS Pro and a skinny option like a GP 5K S-TR 32mm to really show where those transition points are.
I don’t think anyone is saying that. Even Dylan, the most ardent Race King promoter, has said he would not run them on some courses.
Yeah, in the comments section of the Escape article, this point was brought up. Grave, MTB, whatever…the label is immaterial. Just call them “dirt” or “offroad” tires. The type of bike they are mounted on doesn’t matter.
How far ya wanting those ran through the categories?
GP5ks aren’t cheap haha.
Just a quick aside here: Having tested, specifically, the G One RS 40 mm vs 45 mm in the real world, over multiple iterations of the same course, I have to come to the conclusion that there is no reasonable case scenario where the 45 is not at least as fast, if not faster than the 40 mm. This includes pavement sectors where the 45 was found to have no handicap vs the 40 (@~20+ MPH, perhaps at much higher speeds, like 35 MPH there could be an aero loss, but that is not really relevant to my riding). Hence, for me personally, I will never even consider a tire under 45 mm for gravel riding/racing, and see no need for anyone to be testing narrower tires-going narrower than 45 is just a waste of anybodies time.
That’s been my read on it, too.
I agree, no data supports a 40mm tire being better then the same tire at 45mm
“But they haven’t tested all of them yet!!”
It is interesting in what we now define as a “traditional” gravel tire. Here is a short list of gravel bikes and what comes on the bike when you buy it.
Specialized Crux - 38 (Pathfinder Pro)
Santa Cruz Stigmata - 45 (Maxxis Rambler)
Cervelo Aspero - 40 (Gravel King)
Trek Checkmate - 38 (Bontrager)
Salsa Warbird - 42 (Teravail Cannonball)
Canyon Grail - 40 (Schwalbe G-One)
Giant Revolt - 45 (Maxxis Rambler)
Santa Cruz & Giant is the most “progressive” with a monstrous 45 mm tire… pretty narrow. Seems like most gravel tires in this threat START at 45 mm.
While I agree that in most cases (or all relevant cases) this is true…I run 45mm Terra Speeds now after having run 40mm with no intention of going back down in size… There is most certainly “data” that suggests exactly that a 40mm is faster rolling than a 45mm and it’s a source that this thread consistently holds up as useful for “directional understanding”.
I’m not trying to suggest this is anything groundbreaking, but comments like those above are definitely misleading because you’re cherry picking data to make an absolute statement when this is definitely very muddy.
Again, no one is doing this…there are literally dozens (hundreds?) of posts and links all containing equivocations.
If you have a source for your screen shots, that would be helpful.
Manufacturers have fallen behind the current understanding of what is fast in gravel. They will hopefully catch up soon.
I don’t think it is that they have “fallen behind” but more a reflection of how fast that “Wider Better” trend has exploded. 12 months ago, very few people were talking about 2.1+ tires on gravel bikes…by the time we got to Unbound, that had completely reversed and many of the biggest names were on MTB tires.
Sure, Dylan had been talking about wider tires for a few years, but he was also maxing out with the Pathfinder 47. It wasn’t until he switch to Felt last year that he started talking about 2.2’s and Race Kings.
So when you combine the speed of wide tire adoption with the leadtimes necessary for spec’ing bikes (with the side element of excess inventory from the COVID burst), it isn’t really that surprising that you see specs as noted above.
Frame designs take years to develop and finalize and bike specs are usually finalized 6-12 months before production. The factor in freight time from Asia, distribution to retailers and time to sell through…
