Originally Posted by
chas58
I did a lot of testing last year. Answer - it depends on the tire.
A good gravel tire (I used Ramblers and G-One) was not a lot different than a "training" road tire. I used a Conti-4 seasons.
Most people don't ride a gravel bike at 30mph like GCN does. But I tried it. Rambler and the 4-season were similar, with a slight edge to the slick. at 30mph, those tires had about 60 watts of rolling resistance.
The GP5000 were only 25watts rolling resistance. That is like adding 30-35 watts to my threshold power. Try doing that by by training! It also lowered my heart rate by about 5bpm at speed. And, they just felt like I was riding on ball bearings (even though the road was crap).
Just riding solo on the road, yeah, GP5000 was about 8% faster - or about 1-2mph depending on my speed. Not sure why GCN needed so much power for the gravel tires. They should not have any where near that much drag - even at 30mph.
Yep the GP5000 are amazing. But comparing a gravel tire to a 4-season training tire, there wasn't much difference.
I am the point now I'll take comfort over speed. but I also don't enjoy rides that i have to work for it. Meaning if I have to put in that much effort then I better be going faster.
I did however choose the RDO over the 853.... so it's not all about comfort. (part of that choice was standover) though. I figured I could run a gp5000 32c, Jon bon 35 barlow pass 38, snoqualmie- 45 riddler, or 42 resolute also.
A 650 switchback hill is very tempting but I've heard of them ballooning. Niner says 2.0 for the 650b so possible.... I am really undecided, and I'll also be seeing a huge mix of surfaces with this bike