Today, I tested the Schwalbe Rick 2.4 (Speed compound, tan sidewalls) vs the Hutchinson Python Race 2.4 (only available in one version).
Two sets of tyres that were recently tested by BRR and that I both happen to own.
I wanted to find out, once and for all, how useful BRR mountain bike tyre rolling resistance tests actually are compared to real-world conditions.
Test conditions:
The weather was almost completely windless, around 48 degrees Fahrenheit or 9 degrees Celsius, and I used my usual test section of fireroad. Roll down from a standstill without any pedaling.
The surface corresponds to Silca’s Category 2 gravel type. Speeds vary from around 7 mph (first part), to maybe 12 mph for the middle section and around 4 to 5 mph for the last part.
My stopwatch-measured results in this comparison are completely different from those of BRR, but I wasn’t expecting anything else…
First of all:
BRR measures a casing width of 56 mm for the Rick, but on my 30 mm internal width rims, they measure 58 mm or 2.28 inches. According to BRR, the Python Race also measures 56 mm, but on my 30 mm rims, they come in at nearly 61 mm / exactly 2.39 inches! So, the Python Race is clearly wider than the Rick.
However, both of my Ricks also weigh a full 150 grams more per tyre than both my Python Races.
Secondly, and far more importantly:
At the 25 PSI / 1.7 bar pressure that BRR uses on their steel drum, they measure a rolling resistance of 18.5 watts for the Rick and a ‘staggering’ 23.5 watts for the Python Race.
If you calculate the percentage difference from these numbers, the Python Race would have 27% more rolling resistance than the Rick.
If that were true on actual trails, the Hutchinsons should be significantly slower than the Rick. But in the real world, the difference is much smaller than that…
So today, I tested both under identical conditions, with the same tyre pressure for both the Schwalbe Rick 2.4 and the Hutchinson Python Race 2.4: 17 PSI / 1.2 bar rear and 16 PSI / 1.1 bar front.
The test consisted of 15 coast-down runs with the Rick, followed by a quick tyre swap to the Hutchinsons on the same 30 mm rims, and 15 runs with these as well.
I excluded a few outliers (both faster and slower) to eliminate external influences, leaving me with 11 valid runs for one tyre and 12 for the other.
And now, the results:
The Rick had an average time of 36.51 seconds, while the Python Race came in at an average of 37.21 seconds—a difference of just 1.92%.
That’s a barely measurable difference in speed. Yes, BRR’s results suggest that the Rick rolls faster than the Python Race, and that is indeed the case.
However, the huge differences shown in their test simply don’t translate to real-world riding.
The Python Race is indeed slower, so BRR’s results are correct in that regard. However, the huge differences shown in their test are barely relevant in practice. In the real world, on real trails (mind you, this was just category 2 gravel) the difference is less than 2%.
On rougher terrain (Silca 3 and especially 4), the difference will be even smaller or may even turn in favor of the Python Race.
FYI:
I’m posting this on MTBR’s 2025 race tyre thread and TrainerRoad’s XC Race tyre thread.