Put the cross tires on the road bike and headed out this afternoon for a tune-up ride for the epic To Hell And Back ride coming up in two weeks. It was a little chilly, +4C with a cold north wind blowing, but I bundled up and headed out over the local park trails for a few laps to warm up and then hit some gravel and dirt roads north and west of Aurora for and extended stretch just to get the handling dialed in. Forgot to change the cassette as I should have put my 12-26 on the back, so some of the hills were a bit of a grunt with just the 23 cog. The 32mm cross tires really do smooth things out on the gravel, washboard and the pot-holled sections of the unpaved roads. Was out for about 2 hours and felt very good.
Can you recommend a tire (Clincher) for a 100 mile road race that has three hilly 8 mile section of gravel, sand & pot holes. The other 80 miles is fairly flat and on good roads. I want something that will give me some traction and durability, but not slow me down on the road. I’m thinking a cross tire would be too much.
With that sort of ratio of road to gravel/dirt I would just go with a good road tire. Perhaps something a bit wider, say 25mm or 28mm. It is really going to depend on how bad the un-paved sections are. If it’s un-passable with anything other than a cross-tire, then, that will be the better choice. However, the cross-tires do give up a fair amount of rolling resistance on paved roads. I routinely bang over some not great gravel and dirt roads on 23mm road tires( Vittoria EVO CX’s or Michelien Pro Race) and don’t have any problems.
This To Hell & Back ride is similar. It’s about 120K with half on paved roads and the other half on gravel and dirt roads. However, there are a few 3 - 5K sections that are almost un-passable without cross-tires, so that’s what most people will use. I use the 32 mm Vittoria XG Pro Cross tires for this ride.