Gravel Tires: seeking large side knob, minimal center line tread

Triathlon Forum
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'19/'21 Day 1 wagon road, and '19 Day 3 finish were awful. Slow speed and sand and i was getting throttled all over the place.
Oddly though, '19 Day 4 was a pixie dust sand day but we were going much faster and i didn’t have trouble there. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Looked like there was a lot of fudge last weekend in euro cross. Koppenberg looked more proper mud but haven’t watched yet.

Is there a resource that you can point me toward that discusses the nuances of what different tread patterns are designed for and who or what ride style they are best suited for? Thanks! :slight_smile:

Yeah, that squares with my recollections of those days at OTGG. Day one’s sand sections have (mostly) gotten easier each year, which was a relief to many!

Helen Wyman wrote a really good article on her personal choices. It’s transparently written entirely about the tires her sponsor at the time made, but it’s still very good stuff.
It’s worth noting that many of the Challenge sponsored athletes still buy Rhino tires to use due to there really not being a comparable product in the Challenge lineup. The new Flandrien tire is an attempt at that, but I haven’t ridden it yet.

This is completely CX specific, of course. A gravel version would be a good thing to have up somewhere… hmmm…

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There’s some decent stuff in there, but consume with a large grain of salt.

Yeah, he also said that sizes larger than 33mm have less predictable behavior when sliding. Which I’m pretty sure is nonsense.

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There’s some decent stuff in there, but consume with a large grain of salt.

Yeah, he also said that sizes larger than 33mm have less predictable behavior when sliding. Which I’m pretty sure is nonsense.

MTB’ers be like WTF.

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A gravel version would be a good thing to have up somewhere… hmmm…

There has been an underlying angle to this extended discourse for a reason :wink:

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I’d like to take a moment to hopefully explain what the TBD author was sharing.

Increased tire width is not a panacea and after running 45c Terra Speeds since May, it felt really nice to get back on 40s today. For me, the 45c’s handled like boats and feel less sure-footed while cornering. This could be due to the shape of the contact patch, or something else. Regardless, wider tires are slower to “get on edge” and feel more vague. Running lower pressures made the corner-feel worse, running higher pressures improved it but prevented the tire from getting good traction / conforming to the ground.

Now, for context, I run 2.5” tires on my 160/150mm travel mountain bike, 2.4’s on my 120mm mountain bike, and I’ve done BWR SanDiego on 28c Schwalbe ProOne’s. I’ve also run Tubular CX tires from Dugast, FMB, and Donnelly. I have no reason to run anything other than 33s on the CX bike and 40c is the sweet-spot for me on gravel / single track.

Many will cite that rocky terrain necessitates bigger tires. While I can appreciate that they make it “easier”, skills, higher pressures and inserts can all make up for any rim-strike / flat issues and I do not believe the loss in chunky terrain performance negates the improvement in cornering.

Now, regarding the linked article specifically. I think the author is spot on with their statement. Tire-pressure is king is cyclocross and a 33c tire at lower PSI has more grip than a larger tire at higher PSI given the same tread… Why are we comparing the larger tire at higher PSI? Because you cannot run the taller tires at low PSI without increased risk of the sidewall folding. When this happens, you lose all traction and it happens immediately, which is the sentiment the author was sharing. This is also apparent when comparing tubular and tubeless tires, which is why tubular is still ubiquitous at upper levels of the sport.

I will say that this is less relevant to gravel as we typically do not run truly low pressures like in CX (when I was racing at 165lbs, I ran between 19 (slick mud) and 26psi (hard / fast) range. However, you can still feels these affects - as noted above - at gravel widths and pressures.

Mark- where are you looking to optimize for? IMO Terra Speeds and Thundero’s are perfect all-around tires for this area. If you need more grip, drop the pressure 2psi at a time (~4 taps on the valve stem)

Edit to add: I’ve never run Typhoons or Grifo’s, but I have run FMB Sprints, which are similar-ish. They were magical in the right conditions: enough moisture in the soil than you left a tire-imprint but not enough moisture to call for a mud tire. When I was traveling and racing on the east coast this was great - and these conditions occur a lot in Europe. However, in the drier hardpack found here in Colorado, the MXP was a better intermediate tire as the knob design offered more mechanical grip without having to rely on suppleness.

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Rene Herse makes great tires. The knobs are positioned so as to NOT make noice riding on tarmac. They’re great in mud and all surfaces. Check out their site and their research - impressive tires. Done a muddy unbound on them and a dry and rocky BWR. Love them.

Hurricane_Ridge_LX_3389_s-150x150.jpg

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Rene Herse makes great tires. The knobs are positioned so as to NOT make noice riding on tarmac. They’re great in mud and all surfaces. Check out their site and their research - impressive tires. Done a muddy unbound on them and a dry and rocky BWR. Love them.

I have the Juniper Ridge 650x48, and the tires makes lots of noise on pavement. I get folks looking me more than a block away when rolling through neighborhoods. I, however, will say these tires have been great on dirt (packed and loose), gravel to include the chunky stuff, and rock gardens although I try to avoid these when possible (don’t find them fun). They do weep sealant constantly.

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Mark- where are you looking to optimize for? IMO Terra Speeds and Thundero’s are perfect all-around tires for this area. If you need more grip, drop the pressure 2psi at a time (~4 taps on the valve stem)

Nebraska and Kansas. The question formed from having success in loose chunk on the gravel grinder tread and it also working well on brown pavement and pavement. James has talked about known QC problems with the GG line so i’m avoiding it for now and was looking for something similar to replace it with. I haven’t found the smaller side knobbed tires that i’ve tried to grab well in corners in loose-over-hard conditions like the GG did. Not sure if that’s just a fluke or legit.

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I run a Terra Speed in the back and a Terra Trail in the front for a little extra grip. But I am far from an expert in gravel tires.

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love the terra speeds, have them on another gravel bike that i use for commuting and when weather is ugly. haven’t tried to rail corners on them tho… hmmm 🤔

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Are you saying that the current Challenge sponsored athletes do this or when the article was written back in 2017?

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love the terra speeds, have them on another gravel bike that i use for commuting and when weather is ugly. haven’t tried to rail corners on them tho… hmmm 🤔
I am sure Carl would know better, but I am pretty sure Terra Trails sure just Terra Speeds with a little extra side knob. They do roll about 5 W slower though.

https://www.ridinggravel.com/reviews-2/continental-terra-trail-and-terra-speed-tires-long-review/

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They do roll about 5 W slower though.

With the caveat that it’s ~5W slower on nearly smooth steel drum. So ~5W slower on tarmac. Now clear at all to me how the steel drum rolling resistance tests carry over to actual dirt. And just talking about non-technical dirt, not situations where you’re actually using the side knobs to avoid sliding out.

I ride the same singletrack trails using low RR tires on my gravel bike and “very high RR” tires on my MTB (Maxxis Minions) and anecdotally I reach higher speeds without pedalling on my MTB on non-technical descents. Though that could entirely be from the dual suspension being far more efficient reducing unsprung mass. Though part of that unsprung mass reduction is also being able to run 2.3" tires at far lower pressures than most gravel tires can safely be run.

Just overall I think we have a vacuum of information about real world RR on actual dirt. Which I get because there’s a huge range of types of dirt and gravel out there, and it’s super useful to use just the same steel drum as a common baseline.

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What would a RR test for dirt look like that met (near) the same rigor as BRR?

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What would a RR test for dirt look like that met (near) the same rigor as BRR?

It’d be really hard, I think. Even a “rolling road” like SRAM (Zipp) that could somehow be made to have a dirt-like texture variation doesn’t account for the probably-significant issues of sprung vs. unsprung mass that almost certainly starts to become significant when you get any sort of rocky bumpiness.

It might be better to have the “rigor” relaxed quite a bit in favor of just someone doing “rolldown tests” on real bikes and real dirt. Far larger “error bars,” but at least the results are somewhat “real world.”

Or if someone does rolldown tests and it agrees just great with drum/rolling road tests in terms of relative differences between tires speeds, then I can be proven wrong about my speculation that suspension and bouncing mass starts to really matter off road.

If someone sends me gravel tires, I’m happy to spend a day rolling down a hill. :slight_smile:

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BicycleRollingResistance is your friend. You can search for specifically this configuration.The following came back in my search and are worth exploring.

G-One RS Super Race

**Terra Hardpack TR **

Cava Race

GravelKing SS TLC

Cinturato Gravel H 40

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They do roll about 5 W slower though.

With the caveat that it’s ~5W slower on nearly smooth steel drum. So ~5W slower on tarmac. Now clear at all to me how the steel drum rolling resistance tests carry over to actual dirt. And just talking about non-technical dirt, not situations where you’re actually using the side knobs to avoid sliding out.

I ride the same singletrack trails using low RR tires on my gravel bike and “very high RR” tires on my MTB (Maxxis Minions) and anecdotally I reach higher speeds without pedalling on my MTB on non-technical descents. Though that could entirely be from the dual suspension being far more efficient reducing unsprung mass. Though part of that unsprung mass reduction is also being able to run 2.3" tires at far lower pressures than most gravel tires can safely be run.

Just overall I think we have a vacuum of information about real world RR on actual dirt. Which I get because there’s a huge range of types of dirt and gravel out there, and it’s super useful to use just the same steel drum as a common baseline.

It’s been covered in this forum before by the RR wonks. Steel drum tests correlate well to all surfaces.

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Steel drum tests correlate well to all surfaces.

If I’m thinking of what you’re referring to, it went out to really rough road surfaces. TomA, Josh Poertner, et al. True gravel and MTB, I think, go quite a bit farther than that on the spectrum.

That said, yes, I think really pliable, thin casing is quite likely to be faster across all surfaces (ignoring massive puncture risk on rocky offroad terrain). Given equal volume, pressure, etc. I think with my Maxxis Minion comparison I was more wondering if worrying about the specific tires model is maybe less important than thinking about getting the air volume and pressure right for the surface you’re going to be rolling over. Because just by “feel” my pillowy Minions seems fast AF over really rocky terrain. But again, maybe that’s just my bike suspension screwing everything up. Gravel bikes SUCK over rough terrain. Gravel biking is all about learning to enjoy mountain biking using 1980’s mountain bike tech. Which, admittedly, is super fun.

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That’s a super cool feature. Thanks for sharing!

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They do roll about 5 W slower though.

With the caveat that it’s ~5W slower on nearly smooth steel drum. So ~5W slower on tarmac. Now clear at all to me how the steel drum rolling resistance tests carry over to actual dirt. And just talking about non-technical dirt, not situations where you’re actually using the side knobs to avoid sliding out.

Totally agree

I watch all the euro cyclocross races and Helen Wyman as a commentator always continues the traditional thinking that is pervasive in CX (and cycling in general) about the effect of knobs on rolling resistance. While I’m not saying there is no difference, that difference has to be minimized on softer surfaces that “give” to the tread. I think that casing properties (all surfaces) and tread compound (on hardpack) have larger effects than people realize. Ultimately riders need to balance the improvement in control and cornering speed against the (likely minimal) actual hit to rolling resistance.

I was talking with a rider at CX nationals a few years back and my advice was “no one ever lost a race because they had too much grip” and I think that’s true (Within reason).