How would you describe these gravel paths? Are they bike paths? Beaten down walking paths?

There's an understandable (though untrue) theme that people have that a skinny road tire can only be ridden on pure pavement. With people new to biking who are buying their first bike, I've heard "I might ride across grass sometime so I need a mountain bike with suspension and knobby tires" a lot - though it's totally untrue.

I regularly ride my 23c tire road race bike (Specialized Tarmac) on a crushed limestone MUP by where I live. And across grass whenever need be. Without *any* drawbacks (well - the vibration absorbing frame definitely helps with comfort on the trail :-)).

Here's pictures of someone else doing the same thing:




A gravel bike path isn't a problem for a skinny road tire. The limits for a skinny road tire, from my experience, are -
1. An actual dirt road designed for cars - with much larger rocks I can ride it, but it's bumpy and unpleasant. A fatter road slick would handle this fine I would expect, though.
2. Gravel when it's wet. The skinnier tire sinks into it more and has trouble getting a grip. A wider tire would be better. I'm not sure if knobbies would help, they probably would.
3. Loose gravel - paths that aren't packed down. Here knobbies are definitely a necessity.

But riding over stretches of grass, gravel bike trails, or even just packed down trails through the woods when it's not wet - a wider slick tire is almost overkill and works great.

And a skinny road tire is definitely better on the road. Full knobbies are worse in every aspect on the road - they brake worse (less contact with the road and the knobs flex when braking), they turn worse (doing a high speed turn works on a slick, on a knobby you'll fall over), they're slower, noisier, etc. Sounds like you're running a cyclocross tire so it's not as bad, just saying - it's counter intuitive, but if you've tried it that's how it goes, tread isn't helpful at all on the road.

Anyways, I probably wrote way to much, lol. Have fun. :-)