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.
12:11We'll see you next time.
12:11...
Comments