First impressions: Panaracer GravelKing Tubeless-Compatible 700x38C

Panaracer recently expanded its size range for the slick GravelKing tires to a 700x38C (40-622) version. Unlike the previous version of the GravelKing, the tire is tubeless-compatible. Availability is still a little spotty, but I managed to buy them from a German online store for about $40 shipped. Given this affordable price and a claimed weight of only 320 grams, they seemed like a good choice for my all-purpose Cross-Check and for our recently acquired tandem. On the Cross-Check I had been running the Vittoria Voyager Hyper (formerly known as Randonneur Hyper) in either 35 or 38 mm width for the past couple years. Those tires used to be available at incredible bargain prices from UK online shops, and they were a great compromise between ride quality and durability. Those online deals seem to have dried up a bit lately, and so I decided to try the GravelKings. I was also curious to try a tire that would be a little wider and, based on the specs, should have a ride quality close to the Compass tires or the Panaracer Pari-Motos I have on my other bikes.

The weight is slightly higher over what Panaracer claims: On the four tires that I weighed with my kitchen scale, the average weight came out to about 335 g, with very little variation between the tires, versus the 320 g claimed weight. Still, this put the tires firmly under the weight of the Compass 700x38C Barlow Pass, which has a claimed weight of 380 g in the Extralight and 430 g for the standard version. The Voyager Hyper in 700x37C has a claimed weight of 395 g, but Bicycle Rolling Resistance measured them at 415 g. So the GravelKing is definitely a very lightweight tire.

Where are the weight savings coming from? Jan Heine from Compass Cycles claims that it's all in the tread thickness: Your sidewalls can only get so thin and supple, but you can easily get lower weight by removing tread rubber (and consequently sacrificing durability). This seems quite plausible: Compared to my Compass Babyshoe Pass tires (650x42B), as well as the Panaracer Pari-Motos, the sidewalls feel slightly less supple. However, both those tires are not tubeless compatible, and people who have tried setting them up tubeless report that the sidewalls are just too porous and keep weeping sealant. It would make sense that Panaracer would add a little rubber to the sidewalls to address this. The tread feels very similar in thickness to the Pari-Motos, and the Pari-Moto tread certainly is quite thin. We will see how long they will last.

Minimalist tread pattern

What about width? I mounted the tires on three different rims, using inner tubes:

• On a DT Swiss TK540 (inner width: 18.2 mm), the tire measured just under 36 mm at about 40 psi. 
• On a Mavic T519 (inner width: 19 mm), the tire measures just over 36 mm at about 50 psi. 
• And finally, on the wider Sun Rhyno Lite (inner width: 22 mm), the tire again came out to just over 36 mm at 50 psi. 

So they're definitely a little undersized. But this is common and they're likely to expand by a millimeter or two over time.

Edit 4/14: After only a week on the bike, the tires have already expanded a bit: On the TK540, they now measure about 36.5 mm; on the wider Rhyno Lite, they have grown to 38.3 mm.

I will report back. Mounting the tires was a mixed bag. Tubeless-compatible tires have a reputation for being hard to mount. And yet, on both the DT Swiss and Mavic rims mounting was very easy and didn't even require a tire lever. On the Rhyno Lite, however, it was nearly impossible to even get one side of the bead onto the rim. With much cursing, sore thumbs, and soapy water I eventually wrangled them on. But this was one of the harder tire mounting experiences I've had. I'm not sure what accounts for the difference, as in the past I haven't had problems with these rims.

Cross-Check with the new tires

I've ridden the tires for only 30 miles so far. They feel very nice and supple, even though I still have to figure out what the best pressure is. The rubber is softer than on the Vittoria tires, providing presumably better grip.

My conclusion for now: These are nice tires at a good price. My final verdict will depend on how long they're going to last. I haven't formally kept track of the lifespan of the Vittoria Voyager tires or my Compass Babyshoe Passes, but they were good for several thousand miles. I don't expect to get quite as much mileage out of these, but I'm not actually tracking mileage and will update this post in the future.

First impressions: Innova 700x35C Studded Tires

Update 2012-26-02: I now have posted an extensive review of the tire.

The first snow of this winter has arrived in Montreal, and it was quite a lot. As an avid follower of various kinds of weather forecast (yesyes, I'm soo boring) I was, however, well prepared. The night before I put on my new studded winter tires. I bought them sometime in spring, knowing that in winter it can often be tricky to still find studded tires in stock. The only tires in a suitable size -- my fenders only allow a max of 38 mm wide tires -- that my bike shop had available were Innova Snow Tires in 37-622. The tires have a pretty aggressive tread and a total of 110 steel studs, positioned in two rows near the tire's center.

The Innova website is pretty uninformative, and I also couldn't find much information elsewhere on the interwebs. I'm curious how the steel studs are going to hold up. More expensive snow tires from Schwalbe, Nokian/Suomi, or Continental use carbide studs which are harder than steel and should therefore last longer and will also not rust -- even though that is primarily a matter of aesthetics. In principle, the studs should be replaceable and I'm assuming that I could use carbide replacements if necessary. Measured width was about 33 mm on an Alex DA-16 (internal rim width 19mm).

Price

I paid 40 USD per tire at my LBS, which is a pretty good price for studded tires in North America. Last week I saw them at a bike shop in Montreal for 75 CAD each and on Amazon they sell for 64 USD (if you can fit 45mm, you can currently get them for 36 USD there). So they're not cheap when compared to normal tires, but in the world of studded tires they're probably the cheapest you can get. And if they prevent only one crash they're probably already worth it.

Ride quality

 I took the tires on a first 80 minute test ride on the night before the snow actually arrived. It is advisable to break in studded tires, i.e. riding them without hard cornering or braking, for a couple of kilometers in order to allow the studs to set themselves in the tire and avoid losing them prematurely. So I rode along the Lachine Canal bike path, which was mostly dry with some icy puddles. On dry pavement, you can clearly feel the increased rolling resistance of the tires. Up to now I have been on Vittoria Randonneur Pros in 35-622, which roll very nicely, and thus the difference was very noticeable. The best way to describe the feeling of the tires is "riding into a slight headwind." What is even more noticeable than the rolling resistance is the noise of the tires: people often joke that you can take off your bell when you're riding studded tires, and I have to agree: the sound is very similar to riding on fine gravel, even though I think the tires have gotten a bit quieter on the third day. There were some frozen puddles on the Lachine Canal path, and I somewhat cautiously tested riding over them. All went well and so I got a bit bolder: Braking on the ice also worked pretty well.

The next morning I rode into work once the snowfall had mostly stopped. I tried going my usual route on the Lachine Canal, but they don't clear the snow there at all and riding through deep snow wasn't too awesome, even with the new tires. At the next intersection I therefore turned onto the streets which were more or less snow-free. On the more snowy parts, the tires performed reasonably well -- I would say better than the Ritchey Cross-Pros I had been riding during the past winter, but it's hard to tell. On the way back, the roads were mostly snow free, but I did go across an icy pedestrian bridge near Atwater Market. Here the studded tires were great, and I think not having to worry about icy patches that can often be hard to spot is the main advantage of studded tires.

Since then it had gotten warm again and I have taken the tires off. The next snow and ice will come soon, though, and I will probably post an update at some point.

Product details:

Innova TR5263 Snow tire
110 steel studs
700x35C (37-622), also available in 700x45C
Price 40-75 USD

First Impressions: Vittoria Randonneur Pro 700x35c

I picked up my new tires last Tuesday and already put almost 200 km on them. Tueoo early for a comprehensive review, but not too early for some first impressions.

Sizing and weight

Dishonesty in tire sizing is a well-known phenomenon in the bike world. In order to be able their tires as especially light-weight manufacturers make them narrower than their designation implies, so your 700x28 c tire might be only 26 mm wide.¹ This is definitely true for the Randonneurs. Their measured width on a 19.6 mm Mavic Open Pro rim  is only about 32 mm.

The tires' weight as measured on my kitchen scale is fortunately closer to the manufacturer's claim: 472 g vs. 460 g advertised.

Rubber and Tread

The rubber is definitely softer than my Michelin Krylions and also a bit softer than my Continental Gatorskins. Tread is rather minimal, as you can see in the picture.

Mounting the tires

The Randonneur Pro is a folding tire and was reasonable easy to mount. Folding tires tend to be a bit more difficult to mount than wire bead tires because they don't stay in place by themselves. The trick thus is to fix them on the rim in one spot with a zip tie. From there I could easily mount them with two tire levers.

Ride quality

I took the tires on a 130 km ride, mostly on the typical wintry salt-water-grime pavement, but also several miles of partly snowy, partly muddy gravel roads. For pressure I followed the Bicycling Quarterly guidelines, i.e. 60 psi in the front and 70 psi in the back. The tires had a surprising amount of traction and the ride quality was nice. The rolling resistance is hard to assess: The moving average on this ride was only 19 km/h, which is fairly slow for me. But if that's due to the tires is unclear. The dirt roads, the hills and my general lack of energy on that day probably contributed more than the tires. But I will keep an eye olin that.

Conclusion

So far I'm happy with the tires. I'm annoyed that they are narrower than advertised but since I'm riding mostly on snow-free asphalt roads it probably doesn't matter too much. The main question is how puncture proof the tires will be. Updated will follow.

1 The whole issue gets complicated because of the various tire sizing systems. I have a rough understanding of how they work, but I, for example, still don't understand why 622-35 is the same size as 700x37C, and I have no idea if said tires are 35 or 37 mm wide.

Flat problems and inflated solutions

As reported in the previous post, December has already been a bad month with regards to flats for me, and in the meantime it has gotten only worse. I had to get some stuff to and from campus yesterday, and when riding down our driveway I immediately noticed that Wolfgang had another flat in the rear! While waiting for my new tires (see below), I had put on the Conti Gatorskins in the back---the tire that up to now had never failed me. I fixed the flat this morning and it seems like the tire is worn down enough that a small glass piece could make its way through it. I guess I'll have to replace the Contis next season.

For the winter, however, I ordered a pair of 700x35 Vittoria Randonneur Pro tires. Requirements were:

• 32 or 35mm wide
• flat protection
• some tread but not too much
• fairly lightweight

It's more difficult than one would think to find this kind of tire. The Schwalbe Marathon series generally were too heavy (and they have a reputation for having high rolling resistance); most Conti models either had too little tread or were not available in the right size. I would have loved to test the new Top Contact Winter II, but it's not available in the US yet (and the 37mm width might have caused problems anyway). Cyclocross tires from most manufacturers failed on the flat protection requirement. The Vittoria Randonneur series finally seemed to offer what I was looking for. Ideally, I would have like to get the Randonneur Cross Pro, yet my local bike shop couldn't order it via QBP. Thus, I settled with Randonneur Pro in 700x35 which fulfills all requirements except for having potentially having not enough tread for snowy conditions. I should get the tires on Wednesday and will report how they hold up.

Winter adventures

A couple of weeks ago, I found out that Madball were scheduled to play a show at Syracuse's Westcott Theater in mid-December. Since I haven't been to a decent show for many months, I thought I could do a little bike/music mini-trip, cycling up to Syracuse on the 14th, seeing the show, spending the night at a cheap motel, and then riding back the next day. I sent out an e-mail to the FLCC listserv and received lots of good advice about route recommendations. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, the show was canceled. If I couldn't have a bike/music experience, I thought I could at least do the bike part and test my new winter gear. Since Syracuse itself is not exactly the most attractive destination and going all the way there and back in one day would have been a bit much, I mapped a route that would combine two of the route suggestion but did not go up all the way into the city.



The weather forecast for Saturday looked pretty good -- mostly sunny and temperatures around 0° C. I didn't sleep well the night before and I hadn't done any preparations on Friday, resulting in a pretty late start at around 10:30. I knew that a significant portion of the ride would be in the dark, but Wolfgang is well equipped and I actually enjoy riding in the dark.

After climbing out of Ithaca through Cayuga Heights, I took the regular route along Hanshaw/Lower/Upper Creek/NY366 into Freeville and continued on CR105/Fall Creek Rd into McLean. After a quick ClifBar stop at the post office there, I continued on the McLean-Cortland Rd towards Cortland. Traffic was a bit heavier on this stretch but not bad at all. In Cortland I then turned north on NY281 (the sensor activated left turn signal at the intersection of NY34B and NY281 is not triggered by bikes) and would follow this road for many miles. Within the Cortland city limits, up until the junction leading to I-81, was the most trafficked part of the ride but, again, it was still fine. Once out of Cortland, the road became wide, flat, and empty. 281 runs parallel to the Interstate and therefore only carries the little bit of local traffic for the few scattered houses in the valley. In Tully, NY281 becomes US11, and had I gone towards Syracuse I would've taken this road or possibly an option further east. Instead, I crossed the Interstate again and then turned onto NY11A. This part starts with a real nice downhill that takes you out of the Susquehanna River and into the Oswego River/Finger Lakes Watershed. In the small township of Cardiff it was time to replace my GPS's batteries and turn West on US-20.

When planning the route I wasn't quite sure what the traffic on 20 would be like, but as it was only a short stretch and there was no good way to go around I just gave it a try. Traffic indeed did increase, but it was still very low and the shoulders were in good shape. US20 takes you into the Cherry Valley and, indeed, the valley is basically filled with orchards. Because 20 doesn't really follow the valley, I turned right onto Hitchings Rd/CR151 and then zig-zagged my way on small back roads to Cedarvale Rd/CR42, later turning left onto Pleasant Valley Rd/CR119. This road leads right into Marcellus where I took another rest break at a gas station. There were still more than 75 km left to go and shortly after Marcellus, on the Old Seneca Turnpike my woes began.

While riding up a hill I noticed that somehow my bike felt very soft and 30 seconds later it became obvious that I had a flat rear tire. Now I wasn't so much surprised, as I've had flat tires with my winter tires pretty frequently, as more annoyed at myself that I hadn't spent the money and gotten myself tires with puncture protection. Well, no big deal, I thought, and quickly put in a new tube. Of course, I inspected the tire for what had caused the flat and somewhere close to where it should have been, I saw a little hole but without anything stuck in it. Thus, I assumed that whatever had caused the flat had already fallen out and went on to reinstall and reinflate the tire. Only a few minutes later, however, the damn tire went flat again. I pondered my options and since I was pretty much halfway between Marcellus and Skaneateles I initially decided to give up, walk the bike to Skaneateles and call the accomplice to pick me up. It was still more than 5 km to Skaneateles still and at some point I got annoyed enough to give it another try. I took out the tire again, patched the tube, inspected the tire, didn't find anything aside from holes, put it back in, and continued. I knew this was my last chance, as now it was dark enough to make another repair really difficult. Well, the tire held the air for a little bit longer, but not much. So I walked/rode/rolled Wolfgang the rest of the way into Skaneateles and called the accomplice. She, of course, was not too thrilled about having to drive more than hour on a potentially icy road, but of course she came pick me up with "Virginia," our trusty carshare car.

Aside from the tires, my gear held up pretty well. The new shoes were warm enough (feet still felt cold at times, but much less so than on previous rides in similar conditions) and so was the work glove/liner glove combo. I'm still waiting for my new wool baselayer shirt to arrive and eventually I might have to increase the warmth on my legs. The dhb winter bib tights were okay, but had it been colder they probably wouldn't have cut it anymore.

Winter stuff

Winter has arrived somewhat later than usual in Ithaca, but now it's definitely here. Last week was the first time that I had to ride home on snow covered streets and there is a lake effect warning for today. As always, I'm committed to riding year round, and winter after winter I'm fine-tuning my gear to make riding in the cold a more pleasant experience.

Tires

In the past couple of winter, I always switched from my 28mm Conti Gatorskins slicks to the 32mm Ritchey Speed Max that came with the Crosscheck. The main issue I've had with they Ritcheys is their bad puncture resistance. I haven't kept exact records, but I definitely had more than 1 flat/1000 km. Flats suck, and they do so quite a bit more in the winter. To deal with this, I originally intended to just keep the Contis with their basically perfect puncture protecting on throughout the winter. After all, most of the time roads are clear of snow and even when there is snow, it's nice to have a skinny tire that will cut through to the road surface. However, in last weeks first snowfall, I realized that this didn't work out so well. I was able to ride home, but definitely noticed that the Contis lacked traction. Consequently, this morning I put back on the Ritchey tires, but eventually I want to get something else. Probably some kind of 'cross tire, but with the added puncture protection.

Shoes

Regular readers of this blog will remember my persistent issues with cold and numb feet. Since this was basically the main point of failure during previous winters, I decided to spend big and get proper winter cycling boots. Glenn Swan, owner of my trusted local bike shop and year-round rider himself, highly recommended the Lake MXZ302. It took a long time to get the shoes in size 15 wide, but two weeks ago it finally arrived. Due to end-of-semester stress and a cold I haven't been able to test them on a long ride, but they do feel very cozy on shorter rides. I'll keep you updated about their performance.

Gloves

Another recommendation from Glenn Swan were my Kinco winter work gloves. I had bought one pair last winter and was overall satisfied with them. They had two issues, however: the cuffs on them were of the "safety cuff" variety, meaning they were pretty wide and therefore made it difficult to keep cold air, snow, and rain out of them. In addition, they weren't really waterproof. Well, a month ago I lost one of the gloves, giving me an opportunity to find something even better. It turns out that Kinco also make a waterproof version of the glove with a knit cuff (model is 1938 KWP instead of 1938) and that's what I got. So far I'm pretty satisfied -- they are indeed waterproof and as warm as the other model. I'm not quite sure yet how much I like the knitted cuffs. They do prevent water and snow from running into the cuff, but they're also the part of the glove that gets pretty cold. Maybe I'll need some kind of wrist warmer to go with the gloves. In terms of warmth, the gloves alone should be warm enough down to around 0° C, but below that I'd recommend using them with a woolen liner glove. The liner glove is a good idea anyway, as it will absorb some of the sweat that definitely accumulates in the glove on warmer days and harder rides. For really cold days and emergency situations, I still have a big stash of chemical hand warmers.

Jacket

Because everybody--both people I know and people on the interwebs---is raving about how great their products are, I bought a Showers Pass Touring jacket. While it is a decent jacket, I've become more and more critical of it. First of all, it's not really waterproof. The company makes a big deal about being from the Pacific Northwest and therefore making gear appropriate for really wet conditions, but this doesn't really hold true for my jacket. Whenever I'm either riding for extended periods in light to medium rain or in heavy rain for as short as 20 minutes, the jacket always lets in quite a bit of rain. The largest amount of rain enters through the ventilation zippers under the arm pits. But even the fabric itself is definitely not waterproof. Now I must say that previous to this jacket I've never really owned any bike specific rain gear and therefore can't compare the jacket with other ones. But given how expensive these things are (the Touring has an MSRP of $150) I'm feeling disappointed. I even sent an e-mail to their customer service, trying to figure out if this was a common issue or if maybe my jacket had some manufacturing defect. Well, I've never heard back from them.

I guess it's winter

We had quite a bit of snow during the last couple of days. This was a strong encouragement for me to finally replace Wolfgang's 700x28c Conti Gatorskin slicks with my 700x32c 'cross tires. I put them on yesterday (front) and today (back) and now should be ready for the coming snows of this season.

A related side note: This summer I had ordered the Crank Brothers Speed Lever. I tend to misplace traditional tire levers and my disappointing experience with the Quik Stik led me to test a new solution. I must say that I'm really happy with the Speed Lever. Only one piece instead of three and it does indeed work fast. The downside: for really tight tire-rim combinations you'll still need an additional lever to get the tire on and off.

Odo Wolfgang: 2748 km