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My father in law has brought a hybrid/commuter style ebike (a Boardman HYB 8.9e) and has realised that the tyres are a bit skinny, slick and hard for the way he plans to use it.
He’s looking to ride gravel and mellow off road and I reckon some kind of higher volume knobbly-ish soft-ish gravel tyre would be a good bet but I have no idea where to start looking. Can anyone recommend a high volume, comfy, grippy, knobbly tyre that’ll fit a 35mm 700c road wheel?
How much tyre/frame clearance is there with the existing (35mm?) tyres?
There’s plenty of clearance on the fork, but the chainstay is fairly tight apparently.
Does it need to be knobbly?
My experience over the last year of very mixed gravel riding is that knobbles are just a bit redundant for most stuff.
I've been amazed with my Vittoria Terreno Dry, you could get a 40mm for the front and 35mm for the rear?
I'm 85kg and got away with 40psi in latex tubes, no punctures even in some very rocky loose stuff. If you wanted to go softer you'd need to go tubeless I guess.
Does it need to be knobbly?
I guess it doesn't necessarily need to be knobbly, my MTB bias is telling me that if he wants to ride on bridleways he'll need knobs but perhaps not?
you could get a 40mm for the front and 35mm for the rear?
Good idea, if he did that he could even try out the 40mm on the rear to see if it'll fit.
Is there any reason not to go even bigger on the front if it'll fit? My logic is that it's an ebike so he may as well optimise for comfort and grip over rolling resistance.
I'd probably run wider up front if I could.
If it's an e-bike then yeah, I'd maybe go as wide and knobbly as I could! I went for virtually slick tyres because I still wanted to enjoy the tarmac and move relatively quickly so didn't want to be dragging knobbles around.
If width constrained and he really does want knobbly and soft, then Steilacooms may be worth a look. Their grip is impressive, I find they feel really comfortable and they are remarkably not slow either on hard stuff/road. So I'm absolutely loving mine so far. They are expensive though and I don't know how durable.