I once bought a set of those for use on easier mountain bike trails . . . but I never mounted them. I would expect them to give huge shock absorption benefits, but to be rather slow and wallowy on dirt or paved roads.

I just tried my first combo gravel ride starting in Calabasas (Rivet Raid, July 21) and while it did not end well for me, the problem was definitely not my tires. I ran a WTB Nano up front and a Schwalbe G-1 All around on the back. It was about 65 pavement and 35 dirt. I tested a 25c Conti tire at 70 psi vs the G-1 at 45 and could not tease out any difference in speed. I really thought I was ordering the G-1 Speed, but I like the look of the allround and mounted it anyway. On the dirt they were great, I just should have lowered the pressure. On the fire roads I bombed past the guys on the 28c mostly road-ish tires. There were a couple of short, squirrelly single track sections that I nearly crashed on before I was reminded I was not going downhill on a mtb. I think for that ride, I would prefer the G-1 Speed, but I have a fire road 100k coming up where I think the 41mm and 36mm tires are going to be perfect.
And as others have said, don't overinflate. I went as low as 25psi today and really liked it better than at 40 or 50. I rode the same loop twice, once at 35 and once at 45psi in the same time and watts. It was windy, so I am going to do more testing, but that was a 50/50 dirt/pavement loop.
Chad

Are you talking about the bicyclerollingresistance test of Panaracer's Race A Evo 3? I was actually surprised how well that tire scored, considering what Panaracer's protection layers are like.


Ironically, when I ride my Rat Trap Pass ELs on mixed-surface rides, I notice the biggest advantage on paved sections.

When people err narrow, they need to run more extreme drop to get the tire well-behaved enough to ride the rough stuff, and then they need sidewall protection so that resulting high sidewall exposure doesn't result in cuts... you can end up with a tire that rolls quite poorly. On mountainous double-track that's not always noticeable because speeds are limited by trying to not die, but on the smooth road, efficiency is bared.