Road tyres on gravel bike – how much faster?

Just got my first gravel bike and liking the extra 2-3mph it cruises along at on the road vs my MTB.

Bike has 40C WTB nanos but i23 rim ok down to 30C, so wondering how much faster it would be if I dropped to a 30C road tyre. Local trails turned to a mud bath the day after it arrived so thinking I might use it more on the road over the winter. If I could get another 1-2mph for the same effort I’d be tempted.

I’ve just replaced mrs_oab’s Giant PR2 32x700c  tyres with Continental Speed Contact 35mm.

My word they are faster and more comfy!

I think it’s all about the rubber compound and carcass build – I don’t think width is as big a factor.

What about something like a pathfinder pro with a solid central tread?

I run 2 pairs of wheels/tyres, one gravel the other road. Schwalbe G Ones and Schwalbe Durano on the other. No science involved just normal prejudice/conclusion leaping…

Most of the difference seems to come from the rear tyre. I’ve run a rear fast but fat road tyre (35mm Vittoria Hyper Voyager) and a front gravel tyre for a while. Noticeably faster than gravel tyres both ends, and nowhere near as big an issue for grip as you’d expect.

and nowhere near as big an issue for grip as you’d expect.

Grip is overrated for gravel. I use 25c slicks on gravel without any issues. Find them good on road and good on gravel. Not so good in mud or sand but don’t come across that on the gravel roads I ride on.

I run 2 sets of wheels, one with 40c gravel tyres, the other with 30/32 slicks. The latter are noticeably faster rolling on tarmac, and although I would rarely ride a pure road loop on the gravel tyres, my average would be 24/25kmh on the gravel tyres, 25-28kmh on the road tyres.

road tyres are easily 2mph avg faster. Stick em on an actual road bike and gain another 2mph avg. Thats my experience of multiple wheelsets/tyre combinations on multiple gravel and road bikes.

road tyres are easily 2mph avg faster.

Comparing my gravel bike (40mm G-one treaded tyres) to my road bike (unfashionable 23mm slicks) that seems about right. Maybe slightly less actual difference, but the road bike feels a lot faster still.

Depends what mileage you are doing I suppose,and what kind of surfaces you will be on(and mixing).
Like a lot of folk I have two sets of wheels.
I use my CX/Gravel/tourer/commuter for all sorts and tend to only use the road wheels when it’s big road miles. I use Clement Xplors for general use and they are not bad on a mixture of surfaces.I just need to mess around with the pressures a bit.

Ran 38mm G-one All Round tyres over the summer for gravel and the occasional commute, and I didn’t like the ‘squirmy’ feel when cornering hard on tarmac. Regardless of speed, I just prefer the feel and grip of proper road tyres on tarmac. In answer to your question I reckon its about 1mph faster for me.

Nano 40s are already pretty fast for a gravel tyre so, although there will be a difference, it may not be as much as you hope.

I have a PB on a local 17 minute road climb which I set on my gravel bike with a virtually smooth 38mm Terreno Dry rear tyre and virtually unworn Terreno Dry front.

17 seconds faster than on my road bike, and both rides were roughly comparable in terms of duration and intensity and both had a slight headwind.

Don’t have accurate power output for either effort, Strava reckons I was doing 85W less on the road bike, but it also reckons I was doing 305W for 17 minutes on the gravel bike which I don’t think I’m physically capable of!

Conclusion? Who knows, perhaps just that at hill climbing speeds there might not be much in it 😎

https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/cx-gravel-reviews/wtb-nano

https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/specials/grand-prix-5000-comparison

Going on that, you’ve save the best part of 20W per tyre, the slower you typically travel the more speed gain you would get from road tyres.

To optimise your speed, stick a width on there that will smoothly flow from outer rim to tyre sidewall, especially on front tyre. For a bit more comfort at the cost of a little speed, use a wider rear tyre.

Typically I’ve used a 23mm GP5000 on the front (with 17mm internal rim width) and a 32mm GP5000 on the rear (with 19mm internal rim width), that measure ~24mm and 31mm in the real world after bedding in.

Aero is king, but rolling resistance is more king

2-3kph for me. That’s over an hour and 30-40km at between 30 and 35kph. More like 3-5kph for 2-4 hours at between 27 and 34kph.

That’s 40mm G-one on 35mm deep rims with a 30mm external width against 32mm GP5000TLs on a 45mm deep, 32mm width external aero rim.

It’s noticeable. The faster you go, the more you notice it. It’s REALLY hard to keep a 40mm tyre above 40kph for a long period, even slightly downhill. With the 32s on the aero rim, you can keep it above 40kph on the flat. For me anyway.

Yes, road tyres will be a bit faster but for me there’s more to it than that – on road tyres my bike feels so much better – its steering is sharper and it just feels less of a tank on the road.

interesting thread
my gravel/commuter came with byways on it, semi slicks
i found them petrifying, straight line wet braking turned the bike into a conga eel.. i couldn’t dream of leaning the bike
i chucked some gravelking sk? on and got on so much better, didnt give the byways any time to ascertain differences in speed…
certainly dont notice any downsides to the gravelkings

this is coming from the point of view of never having ridden anything road like before

I have a PB on a local 17 minute road climb which I set on my gravel bike with a virtually smooth 38mm Terreno Dry rear tyre and virtually unworn Terreno Dry front.

17 seconds faster than on my road bike, and both rides were roughly comparable in terms of duration and intensity and both had a slight headwind.

Don’t have accurate power output for either effort, Strava reckons I was doing 85W less on the road bike, but it also reckons I was doing 305W for 17 minutes on the gravel bike which I don’t think I’m physically capable of!

My PB up Naish hill (115 out of 3255) in Bristol is on my gravel bike on 42:40 gearing. for the right hill, it just makes it easy or you have to push harder…dunno which.

I’ve got a Reilly Gradient with 43mm Gravel King SKs, and a Defy on 28mm GP5000s. The difference is less than you might expect, maybe 1mph average. I think that’s because the Gravel King is actually really fast for a gravel tyre.

I think it’s all about the rubber compound and carcass build – I don’t think width is as big a factor.

We’re still talking about tyres,yeah?

Mmm, I’m tempted to sling some road tyres on and give it a go. I was just about to set the nanos up tubeless but I guess better to stick to tubes if I’m going to be swapping tyres.

What would be the STW recommendation for a fast road tyre available in 30/32c? (i23 rims min thickness)

road tyres are easily 2mph avg faster. Stick em on an actual road bike and gain another 2mph avg

Would agree with the first bit, not sure on the second, depends how gravel your gravel bike is I suppose.

On my semi-regular 110km road loop, I’ll average 24.5kmph on my Vagabond with 38c tyres, and 28.5kmph on my carbon road bike with 25c slicks.

Weight makes a bit of a difference too, the Vagabond is probably 6-7lbs heavier (steel frame, mudguards, heavier wheel, etc.)

I’m with matt – I don’t think width is so much of a factor (up to a point, anyway) as how the tyre is made. For the riding I do the aero disadvantages of a 38mm tyre are neither here nor there really.
My Gravel King 38mms (the slick ones) seemed as fast to me as the 25mm Yksions on my old bike, and I did get a few PRs on them. They also felt great, but like I said on another thread the rear wore out very quickly. Definitely quicker than my Byways, but they were on heavier 650b rims.
G-One Allround 38mm feels pretty fast, don’t like it as much in corners but not sure if that’s all in my head from looking at the tread and thinking there’s less rubber on the road.
The G-Ones feel very harsh though compared to the Gravel Kings. Going to try a Teravail Rampart, which I’m hoping will be closer to the GKs but more durable.

For those saying ‘only 1 or 2 mph average’, remember how hard it is to gain that when you get into the high mph teens. It’s bloody hard so I wouldn’t give it away for free

Interesting this as I run 700×50 on my Gravel bike, so about as ‘it’s just an old 90s MTB’ as you can get!

I was thinking about getting some road tyres and some guards on to try get some winter tarmac miles in, it sounds like it would be well worth it. I reckon 32mm will be a big change whilst still comfy.

For those saying ‘only 1 or 2 mph average’, remember how hard it is to gain that when you get into the high mph teens. It’s bloody hard so I wouldn’t give it away for free

Absolutely. The difference between our club ‘intermediate’ and ‘fast’ rides is probably 1-2mph average. The difference in pace on the road is huge.

I have 40c nanos on my gravel, which are pretty fast. Before that I was using 36c ( or was it 35c?) Vittoria Revolutions.
The revs were noticeably faster, and had great road feel. They lose a bit off-road, but were surprisingly grippy on everything except wet mud and grass.

I like the nanos, but I’ll be going back to revs I think.

Having run three sets of wheels for around 4-5000km now on my gravel bike, my averages are
32mm GP5000TL (on 18mm internal rims) 17-18mph
40mm Hutchinson Touareg (22mm internal) 15-16mph (predominantly road rides)
47mm Senderos (25mm internal) 13-14mph.

I also run different gearing on the road wheels, I have an 11-34 cassette on them and a 9-42 on the gravel wheels (all wheels are DT swiss so I can swap free hubs around in seconds)

Thanks for the feedback – I’ve got some 30c Vittortia corsa controls arriving tomorrow, will be interesting to see how much faster they are vs. the nanos.

Vittoria Revolutions.
The revs were noticeably faster, and had great road feel. They lose a bit off-road, but were surprisingly grippy on everything except wet mud and grass.

What I’m running (38c I think).
Really rate the Vittoria Revs. Done a couple of 1000km on them, and will replace with the same when the time comes.
Even did a couple of very lumpy 100 milers on them. Very comfy and surprisingly fast rolling for a bigger tyre.