james_swift

Ok...recalibrated the cyclometer and hit the road for the evening commute. Here's what I've found:

The Scorchers are sluggish off start, and sluggish in sprints. They seem to not want to respond as quickly as the 1.35 Comets to big inputs of force on the pedals. At low speeds, they actually feel no faster than the Comets, in spite of their claimed low rolling resistance. If you're looking to be impressed in stop-n-start mad city dashes, you'll be very disappointed.

Although the Scorchers are lazy on start-up, once you get them rolling past the 12 mph zone, they seem to shine from there on. It's clear that these tires were made for top-end. Bring them past 15mph with steady but moderate input and they just keep rolling faster and faster. At 17.5 mph and higher, the Comets begin to fight back with every pedal stroke. The Scorchers, on the other hand, seem to ask for more and more speed. It's at these higher speeds that the low rolling resistance of the Scorchers is most obvious. They roll right up to speed, and stay there.

The cyclometer was showing speeds of 1 - 1.5 mph faster than normal today. Headwinds on my evening commute are the norm, and today was no exception.

I wouldn't categorize the Scorchers as a holeshot tire by any means. They don't "Scorch" in that sense. They're more like velodrome tires were sustained high speed is the goal.

Perhaps that explains why the Greenspeed rolling resistance test was performed at 18.6 mph (30kph).