Originally Posted by
RockiesDad
Great thread! I'm just getting into this whole biking experience at a ripe old age of 59yr and am trying to improve mph and also my fitness just as the OP has mentioned.
This quote on tires picked my interest due to just picking up a cyclocross type bike with semi-knobbie tires and was wondering it I should invest in some smoother tires for the road. I usually do 80% road and 20% gravel and would like to go faster on both. I have looked into smoother tires that would do well on gavel too but was wondering if is worth it? Can someone quantify this? Would speed/efficiency increase by XX% amount? Right now I think it would help a bit because I can hear wind resistance from my knobby tires going downhill. Just wondering...
I would keep your CX tires for off-road riding (80% gravel & 20% on-road). I have
Clement X'PLOR USH for gravel rides and CX events; however, when I'm going to be riding roads and limestone trails, I convert to
700x28 Panaracer T-servers. You should expect to move faster and work less with a semi-slick tire. And you'd be surprise how well semi-slick tires work on non-paved surfaces. I have used the T-serves for gravel road century rides with lower pressures; one of these races was just fine, the other one was stressful because of fresh/loose gravel. Heck, Lisa rides her road bike with 700x23
Continental Ultra Sports on 80% road and 20% limestone.
So, you can convert tires to make it easier to go fast and not worry too much about riding non-paved surfaces.