I went out with a group this morning. The guy with coloured Vittoria tyres had two crashes where his tyres lost grip on the road. The rest of the group said that coloured tyres are known to be more slippy – I’ve not heard that before. Any truth behind this?

Decades ago the old Vittoria green ones were slippy. It’s also been said that white compounds can be hard/slippy, but I’d imagine that’s all a load of tripe nowadays.

What he said, he probably either didnt see the diesle/mud/gravel, was draging his brakes or was just plain unlucky.,

It’s just the kind of rider who buys coloured tyres 😉

I would have thought that technology would have overcome this, after all it’s probably only a different pigment rather than (carbon?) black.

With mountain bike tyres they can use different compounds on the shoulders, sure I read about some manufacturers doing this with road tyres. They are softer as you want more grip but they don’t get as much wear.

Assuming they’re Vittoria Rubinos, they’re super-slippy regardless of colour. I put some blacks on for the first time this winter and I find them worse than gatorskins. No punctures or cuts yet though.

There is some truth in this, for their Ultremo ZX tyres Schwalbe say

“coloured rubber compounds are good, but black ones are better. For the very best performance in grip and durability choose the Ultremo in black”

I’ve not compared the two back to back but the black does seem to have limpet like grip…