Roadie tyres for gravel bike

Looking to the future of those new tyres and making sure they are useable for a range of things, how about 35mm Continental GP5000 AS? 

Fast rolling, puncture resistant, grippy in the wet.

Tubeless and designed to work well and very fast at much lower pressures.

The only big negative is the cost but shop around among European suppliers should save some money, which is how I got mine fairly recently. 

The Specialized Pathfinder Pro aren't too shabby on road. 

Why inserts for the road though, reducing rotational weight would help for this trip?

i put continental 35mm gp5000's on my gravel bike last year and they were superb even on gravel 🙂 word of warning they will puncture easily on gravel but for road use they transform the feel of the bike 

Why inserts for the road though.

I am a big lad, I find they allow for more support without having to have silly high pressures.

I would have to get some narrower inserts for 35mm tyres, and that is adding up to too much cost.

I have ordered some schwalbe pro one that are 38mm, but no one has them in stock so I am not sure they will turn up in time.

Recommend what you have, so, G One Speeds, shouldn't really be let near gravel but make for good road tyres. I have 35c, also come in 32.

Just fitted a set of the GP5000 AS in 35mm to my gravel bike. Will be trying them out in the Lake District this week. 

Cheapest place I found for them was Bike Inn, they were delivered within about four days. 

I’ve got some GP5000AS 35mm as my winter tyres. I run 30mm GP5000S TR the rest of the time. The AS are comfy and fast with the added advantage of extra puncture protection. They are definitely slower than the 30mm 5000S but not by much. 

g one speeds. 30mm. Plenty fast enough for the roads

My road tyres are a Schwalbe G One Speed and a Teravail Rampart, both 38mm. If you want closer to a 'proper' road tyre Pirelli have recently released one in 40 mm I think - can't remember which one exactly 

Been running Panaracer Gravel King Slick 38mm on my gravel bike over the winter. Pretty much as fast as my road bike, and much comfier.

Just pick any 40mm ish slick that takes your fancy. Well 30 to 50mm if you like.  Don't over think it. G one speeds in 35mm for me but also 30's. WTB Exposures as well.

I’ve got some Panaracer Pacella in 38mm that I use as a road tyre. Grippy, fast rolling, lightweight. They’re not tubeless though, they’d need a lot of extra rim tape to be secure on my Hope 20Five rims.

I'm also bigger/heavier.  For the road I struggle to believe people need inserts  with decent tyres and pressures.  

I ran 28s on a tour in Holland last year with panniers and a week of luggage.  

I have some Giant tubeless things in 28mm set up tubeless and run around 70-80psi (iirc) and they are (1) reasonable £ and (2) make a significant difference over my Ultra-bite off road tyres.   

I spent a year on cheaper road tyres, didn’t think it made a lot of difference, then went back to GPS5000 28’s cos sale, with latex tubes. I realised then the cheaper tyres had ruined a year of riding for me, the GPS/latex combo is sublime. The Ventoux area is so beautiful, and the roads lovely. Treat yourself. They even sweep the dust off Ventoux roads.

God I love that place.

I’m a bit skeptical of the benefit of inserts in road tyres for normal use. Really low pressures are only really beneficial on very rough surfaces, at which point I’d probably prefer an off-road tyre anyway. I know pro racers use them, but that’s more so they can roll on a punctured tyre until they get serviced.

Probably worth considering if you’re finding it hard to source something to fit your inserts.

Oh, and Ventoux is awesome. And the area around it. You’ll have a blast 

The thread title says roadie tyres, but you don't seem to want roadie tyres. There's a reason roadies use 28-32mm tyres

Posted by: stevious

↑

I know pro racers use them,

Are they using them in proper road races now? I had the idea it was for Paris Roubaix and the like so they could get out of the cobbled segments where service is very slow. 

I have the same tyres as the OP and for road rides I just increase the pressure. Going from 35 to 50 psi made a noticable difference to speed on the road. 

Tyre inserts for road? Waste of time and weight. 

Widest GP5000s with latex tubes. Running 30c on narrow rims and they are fabulous. You’ll need a pump for latex as they lose 10-20psi/day

Posted by: Matthew Hornby

↑

Are they using them in proper road races now?

Not sure how widespread it is but here's a pic of Thomas De Gendt's wheel after a puncture* in one of the middle eastern races last year.

* not really a puncture, apparently the tyre they were running was too narrow for the wide rims.

Specialized mondo tyres are pretty good. I run 35mm

You can get Conti GP5000 AS TR (tubeless version) in 35mm, the standard type only goes up to 32mm I believe.

If you absolutely have to go bigger then slick Panaracer Gravelkings are the order of the day.

Inserts are pointless on the road. There's no need to run pressures that low, it will increase rolling resistance and you do not need the bigger contact patch on tarmac because there is already ample grip, as evidenced by the fact that people used to race on 21 and 23mm tyres. Plus the bike will handle better in hard corners with more air in the tyres to provide support.

I weigh 130kg, I need pressures that would blow the tyres off the rims without inserts.

The Silca pressure calc recommends 59/61psi for 140kg worth of bike and rider with a 35mm tyre. Conti GP5000 AS TR max rated pressure is 65 psi.

If you have hooked wheels and you put tubes in and run a standard clincher GP5000 then the max rated pressure for a 32mm tyre is 102psi.

Either way you should be absolutely fine.

The Silca pressure calc recommends 59/61psi for 140kg worth of bike and rider with a 35mm tyre. Conti GP5000 AS TR max rated pressure is 65 ps

Yeah I have looked at their calculator before and I can confirm from real world experience that it is absolute high grade bovine excrement. I think they just assume that there is a linear line for weight and pressure while in the real world there is defiantly a tipping point where the structure of the tyre just stops providing the support it would for lighter riders. I acknowledge I am somewhat of a statistical anomaly, but I do know from many years of experience, trial and error what my requirements are.

Posted by: quentyn

↑

i put continental 35mm gp5000's on my gravel bike last year and they were superb even on gravel 🙂 word of warning they will puncture easily on gravel but for road use they transform the feel of the bike 

^^

As above, I did the same (albeit 28mm tyres) and they were a lot faster than my Schwalbe G-One Allround 38's. 

On my typical 75 miler (canal/road mix), they were a lot quicker... but they punctured easily on the canal (hedge trimming = thorns). I bunged some tubeless sealant into the tubes and called it a day. Tubeless would have been better in hindsight.

They're not the most robust tyre (even with road-only use),  but I do like them (getting them on/off the rims was an absolute PITA - but that was 5 years ago, things might have improved in that respect).

I'd also suggest GP5000AS. I'd go for 32mm, set up tubeless and remove noodles... better without them on road. Honestly, set up with appropriate pressure (68/71 psi for you) and it'll feel like you are cheating! Tyre can handle over 100psi so no worries there.

For hookless the recommended max tyre pressures are a bit lower:

https://conti-tyres.co.uk/road-and-track/clinchers/grand-prix-5000-as-tr

I started this thread a couple of months ago as I was looking at a similar thing.

Finally got out for a shakedown ride on those 38mm GK-Slicks on Sunday:

My observations:

-Very comfortable ride at ~50psi (tubeless) when compared to the 28mm tubed yeres I was riding on my winter bike a week earlier on the same roads.

-Bike/wheels seem to hold speed well

-The extra ~100g (per wheel) is noticable when accelerating or spinning up

-the ability to just rattle my way through rougher road surfaces is a benefit round this way.

-Climbing was fine, tackled some steeper local hills just to see. 

-Overall Avg speed for the ride seemed pretty much unaffected... 

Note: it was essentially an entirely new bike with different frame, bars, shorter cranks and different gearing, etc which could well have skewed things more in favour of rider comfort.

I did find myself wondering if maybe 30 or 32mm tyres could have been "faster" and still as comfy... The thing I noted from the tyre pressure calculators is the smaller I go the closer I get to the max 60psi manufacturer recommendation, 32mm are kind of on the boundary, 35-40mm I've got some margin...