- 23 hours ago
Running super wide or mtb tyres on a gravel bike seems to be one of the best upgrades you can make to a gravel bike in 2025 so we thought we'd copy the gravel racing pros and see if mountain bike tyres on a gravel bike actually makes it better...
In the video Jamie tries out 2.2" (55mm) mtb tyres on his gravel bike - a Lauf Seigla to decide whether they're better than his usual 45mm gravel tyres. Which are the best gravel bike tyres and what are the best width gravel bike tyres? Jamie from Cycling Weekly thinks a 50mm tyre is perfect for most gravel cycling here in the UK.
In the video Jamie tries out 2.2" (55mm) mtb tyres on his gravel bike - a Lauf Seigla to decide whether they're better than his usual 45mm gravel tyres. Which are the best gravel bike tyres and what are the best width gravel bike tyres? Jamie from Cycling Weekly thinks a 50mm tyre is perfect for most gravel cycling here in the UK.
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00:00There's your conclusion. Wide tyres won't help you if you're crap off-roading.
00:13Have you seen the size of these? These are my new gravel tyres. I haven't used them yet,
00:19as you can see. They're fresh out of the box. But I'm going to see if I can be converted
00:23to mountain bike tyres on my gravel bike, basically. You've probably seen mountain bike
00:29style or mountain bike width gravel tyres being used in lots of top-tier gravel races. So unbound,
00:36loads of people were using 50mm tyres, whereas 45mm used to be wide on gravel. No longer. And if
00:44your frame can fit them, then apparently we should all be fitting really wide tyres like these. These
00:49are Continental's Race King. They're 2.2 inches wide. Luckily, the Lauf can fit 57mm tyres, so
00:56there's a bit of room to spare. The physics is kind of a bit counter-intuitive, though. Like,
01:02wider tyres, we've been told for so many years, is slower, and now all of a sudden we're being told
01:07they're faster. I mean, there's no way that it's more aero, so can it make up for enrolling resistance?
01:13Well, I'm going to try and find out. I've got a race at the weekend, a gravel race. It's called
01:18Gritfest. It's in mid-Wales. And I've done it for the last three years now. It's one of my favourite
01:24gravel events. And I've been a bit torn on what bike to use, what tyres to use. But for the
01:32last
01:32three years, I've used Malauf Zegler with the suspension fork at the front and 45mm Schwalbe G1s.
01:38I've been quite happy on it. There's some stages where you feel like you might want a hardtail
01:42mountain bike. There's other really fast bits where you feel like it's definitely gravel bike territory.
01:48So maybe this will be the best of both worlds. Or maybe I've just absolutely ruined my gravel bike.
01:56There's only one way to find out, isn't there?
01:59I have just realised a slight issue. This front tyre I've put on backwards. You can see around here,
02:05it says rotation. There's an arrow, which quite clearly goes, not the way it's going to spin.
02:12That's what you get when you fit tyres at 10 o'clock at night.
02:16OK, we're ready to ride. I am intrigued to see how these tyres perform. We haven't had any issues
02:24with them so far. So let's go on a ride.
02:35Well, I've ridden about 10 metres so far and I've spotted an issue already.
02:42I now get to overlap. So where I actually have my cleats quite far, I have my foot quite far
02:49back
02:50and even so, yeah, that's going to be really annoying when going slowly and trying to like
02:56do any technical bits. Maybe we should just all have hardtail mountain bikes if we want to run
03:01mountain bike tyres. Am I going to move my cleats? Am I going to put up with it? Or am
03:07I going to change
03:07my tyres? Nah, let's just crack on.
03:28Ah, yeah, pretty positive. On stuff like this, they definitely feel nice. I haven't done any like long,
03:37really straight, fast bits yet. All the fast bits I've done have actually been a little bit rocky.
03:44So I guess find out there whether they're more draggy, whether there's that aero penalty and whether
03:49you can feel that. What I would say is if you have a rock like that, if you're on like
03:54a 38 mil or a 40 mil
03:56gravel tyre, then you're going to want to go around that. On my 45 mil gravel tyres, you'd be absolutely
04:04fine
04:04going over it. Like no problems. But would I choose to go around it? Yes, probably. If I saw that
04:11on the
04:11track and there was a clear bit here, I would probably choose to go around it. The wider your tyre,
04:17the more
04:18you can go over basically, or more it's comfortable to go over. The more you can go over without losing
04:24speed or rolling off the side of it. And what I have found is on these tyres, I just don't
04:29care as much
04:30what I'm riding over. Like on a track like this, there's basically nothing that you can't ride
04:37full pelt at. So that's quite nice. But yeah, now to go and find some climbs, because obviously a
04:45penalty of using wider tyres is usually additional weight. And if there's not a weight penalty, then it
04:50normally means they've got really fragile sidewalls and you're going to tear it as soon as you hit
04:54anything rocky. So yeah, generally a bit of a weight penalty. Let's go and find out if that makes any
05:01difference. Test two, come on big tyres. I haven't cleared this hill before. Can I clear them on the
05:11mountain bike tyres? Let's go. I mean, I'm kind of glad I'm on these ones, to be honest. Oh, that's
05:23quite
05:24loose there though. Oh dear. Oh dear. I didn't choose to be over here. Ah, no. I still haven't cleared
05:33it then.
05:35Oh well. If I could spot, get going again. But we should be all right from there.
05:46Right, why tyres be grippy? I'm not clipped in.
06:07Yes, planned my celebration and everything. Now I can't use it. To be honest though,
06:14I would rather be on these tyres for that. My opinion at the moment is it depends what gravel
06:18you want to be riding. If you want to ride more mountain bikey stuff, use mountain bike tyres on
06:25your gravel bike. Although actually, then you would just get a hardtail mountain bike and that is
06:31something that I do strongly believe in. There's lots of manufacturers pushing you towards a gravel
06:37bike or like trying to tell you that that's the greatest thing in existence. I do agree they are great
06:42because a lot of people need to ride on the road to get to their off-road. However, if you
06:48have a road
06:49bike, potentially an all-road bike, if you don't race, you can basically get away with having an all-road
06:54bike. You can do dusty trails on that. And then if you want to go off off-road, hardtail mountain
07:01bike,
07:02which of course you can still use on the road. It just might be a bit more draggy. So is
07:07the answer
07:08putting mountain bike tyres on your gravel bike? Yes, it probably makes it better. But is a hardtail
07:13mountain bike not even better? That's the next question I need to answer. Onwards.
07:45Well, test ride number one done. They've done enough to convince me to use them at the weekend.
07:51So today, we've sort of been, well, almost purely on either this sort of terrain, like fire roads,
07:59or much rockier stuff. And on here, I've been enjoying them. I've been sold. However, I must admit,
08:05we haven't done a lot. Well, I haven't, I barely touched any tarmac at all. And I haven't done
08:10much fast stuff. I don't think I've gone above like 25 kph the entire day. So it'll be interesting
08:17at the weekend to see when things do get a bit faster, because there's a real mix of stages.
08:22Some of them are quite technical, rocky, like some of the stuff we've done today. And then other bits are
08:29just half an hour segment go rolling, but fast open fire track like this. So yeah, intriguing.
08:40From what I've seen so far, not a bad effort from the mountain bike tyres at all.
08:58Right, before we get on to the conclusion of this video, please do make sure you're subscribed to
09:02the channel because, well, it really does help us make as much bike content as possible. So yeah,
09:08click the button. And without further ado, here is the bike that I used for Grip Fest. So this is
09:13the
09:13setup that I chose to use. And as you will see, it does indeed have the wide tyres still fitted.
09:19And in the end, I think that that probably was the right decision for me because, well,
09:26in typical Welsh fashion, the weather took a turn for the worse and it was no longer quite so dusty.
09:33Off road, and I am 99% sure that the wide tyres are the faster option. Now, it's very hard
09:41to measure
09:41aerodynamics in the real world. But lots of pros, all those pro riders unbound that you see using
09:48wide tyres, they have had plenty of wind tunnel time. And if they're doing it, then it's quite
09:54easy to imagine that me and you travelling at much lower speeds inevitably, then there's even more
10:00benefit to using wide tyres. So let's get into that a bit deeper. On descents, I was definitely more
10:07confident and less wary of my line choices when using these tyres. On technical sections, I was glad
10:13of the additional grip. And on the road, I was pleasantly surprised by how well these Race Kings
10:18rolled. Wide tyres sound like a nailed on winner then, but my choice does come with a few caveats.
10:25I hate saying it depends, but it really does depend. It depends on what gravel you will be riding. If
10:31you
10:31just want to do some light towpaths and things like that, then fit a 45mm, fit and forget, you don't
10:38need anything wider. However, if you want to travel as fast as possible over a whole range of gravel
10:45surfaces, then I think basically fit as wide as your frame will allow. And that's a good point,
10:52actually, because a lot of frames won't take tyres this wide. And well, that makes your decision quite
10:58easy, doesn't it? Now, I do think that bike manufacturers are going to have to listen to consumers
11:03and the science and start making their clearances a lot wider. And they have, to be fair. A lot of
11:09even the race bikes, race gravel bikes that we've seen released this year, have got those wider
11:14clearances. That Villa Rave ID2 springs to mind. Now, I say that, fit as wide as higher as possible,
11:22and then I'm actually going to contradict myself almost immediately, because what I now
11:27want to do to this bike is move down to a 50mm tyre. So these are 55mm, 2.2 inch.
11:34I think a 2.1 inch
11:36or 50mm is going to be the sweet spot for my riding and this bike. And I'm hoping, I'm making
11:42that
11:42decision because I'm hoping that it will eliminate that tow overlap that you saw I got earlier.
11:48Therefore, hopefully I can have all the benefits of big tyres without any of the negatives.
11:53In conclusion then, wide gravel tyres have done enough to convince me that they are a genuine
11:58option rather than just a gimmick. Let me know whether you agree or disagree with my tyre choice
12:04down in the comments below, as well as any questions that you'd like us to answer on the channel next.
12:10We'll see you next time.
12:11let me go.
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