Originally Posted by
Craptacular8
Also curious about the compass tires. Since there doesn't appear to be any built in flat protection, wondering about using them for predominantly gravel rides given that I'm flat averse. Anybody with experience?
In general, the flat protection in a wide tire is that the tire is wide. If properly inflated, a wide tire with a supple casing will tend to deform rather than puncture for all but the sharpest of objects. Given equal casing and compound (but not equal inflation!) a 700x35 tire will be more puncture resistant than a 700x23 tire. I'm nearly certain that's the thinking with the Compass tires because Jan Heine is an old school guy who thinks this way (see his remark about punctures in the comments following this blog post:
https://janheine.wordpress.com/2014/...nd-fast-tires/).
That doesn't mean you'll never puncture with these tires. If you're concerned about punctures, the new tubeless model (Bon Jon Pass) might be the best of all worlds, assuming you have tubeless ready wheels.