Originally Posted by
Tape2012
I disagree to a certain extent. The knobs on my cyclocross bike are not all that aggressive, I've ridden on pavement with them with no issues and no squirming. On smooth pavement they cost you a few mph, that why I will switch to road tires for those rides.
But if you've ever ridden 50 miles of chip seal on skinny road tires you'll end up with numb body parts and loose parts on your bike. It's pure hell. Wider knobbies are much smoother since the knobs fill in the pits.
Much as hate to say this, you seem to know what you are talking about. I don't ride much chipseal, thankfully ... last time I did was on an Al-frame, CF-fork road bike with 23-mm tires ... which as you can imagine was simply too much physical pleasure to tolerate.
Other than chipseal, not sure I'd recommend knobs ... but those cross-cut treads (essentially "knobs" created from very narrow grid channels) might be more stable.
I was thinking of full-on MTB tires ... they are slow on the road, they disintegrate quickly, and they can squish in turns, in my experience.
I have never ridden a cyclocross-specific tire so i will defer to your greater experience on that.