What is the best 28-30 mm 700c tire for fast riding on pavement?

[David T.]

What is the best 28-30 mm 700c tire for fast riding on pavement? Or
some good ones?

[William]

I've been pretty happy with the Clement Strada TTG (TGG?).  It's more like a 27 on a narrow rim (open pro)

I'm eager to try the Grand Bois Cerf Green Label and the Challenge Paris Roubaix

[J L]

I can speak to the quality and ride of the Grand Bois tires in all sizes.  They are the best tires I have ever used.  They are worth the price.  What do you mean by "best" ?  I think the Riv Ruffy Tuffy and Rolly Poly are great tires.  You cant go wrong in that size range.  There are many threads on tires in the achives.

Jl

[benzzoy]

I've tried both the Challenge Parigi-Roubaix and the Grand Bois
Cypres. Compared to the Jack Brown Greens (my "best" all-rounder),
they both appear to roll better. The PR wins my "best" list by being a
better tire for cornering - both are quite sticky, but the PR tracks
predictably and the Cypres tends to wallow. I ride in Northern
California where we have a lot of curvy technical descents so this
characteristic is important to me.

Both have fairly thin treads and have about the same puncture
resistance (very little) but are a joy to ride when the conditions are
right. If you've ever tried Vittoria's Open Corsa CX 25s, the PRs feel
like fatter OCs. I love the PRs so much that most of my fat tire-
capable bikes are shodden with these.

[Aaron Thomas]

Challenge Parigi-Roubaix -- hands down. No question, the best tire in that width. 

On a Mavic Open Pro they measure about 28.5. On a Velocity A23 they're more like 29.

On Sunday, April 15, 2012 9:47:12 AM UTC-7, David T. wrote:

[robert zeidler]

+1 on GB's. 

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[John Speare]

I agree.

 

I have the Challenge PR’s on my bike now, but when they wear out, I’ll go back to the Cerfs. Awesome tires in every way.

 

Both of these tires do great on gravel/dirt roads too – for what they are.

 

John Speare

Spokane, WA

http://cyclingspokane.blogspot.com

[Jim M.]

I like the Schwalbe Ultremo. Very fast, light, and so far, no flats in the first 1,000 miles.

jim m
wc ca

On Sunday, April 15, 2012 9:47:12 AM UTC-7, David T. wrote:

[Ryan Ray]

Iv'e been meaning to ask this same question.  I wish there was an Ultremo DD in 28 or a Kojak in 28. I'm thinking of going down to 25 for the fender and tire choices but at 6-6 200 I probably will get 28 Pasela TGs (folding). I wish they had a no tread option.

Finding consensus on tires is impossible. Reviews seem to be so split! You have the princess-and-the-pea riders, the never-flat-ever riders and everything in-between. Plus tires seems to have such variance in manufacturing. People have had GB tires last thousands and thousands of miles and some that have last hundreds with many flats. Add in road type variance and you have jet so many competing factors.

You might be best served by riding whatever your friends ride because most of those factors will be in line with your riding style.

- Ryan

On Sunday, April 15, 2012 9:47:12 AM UTC-7, David T. wrote:

[franklyn]

There is a Kojak in 28. They come OEM on some bikes, but Schwalbe does not sell it retail. If anyone is interested, I do have one new 700cx28mm Kojak that I am willing to let go for pretty cheap.

Franklyn

[robert zeidler]

Fir that matter, +1 on the Challenge PR's. 

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[Ryan Ray]

If you have a pair I'll take them :)

- Ryan

[Aaron Schmidt]

No love for Conti Gatorskins?

I've been riding these for years in 25, 28 and 32. No complaints!

Well, sort of. I want to try something new but can't bring myself to
fix what ain't broken.

I'm definitely intrigued by the Cerfs and JBs.

On Apr 15, 9:47 am, "David T." <davidtren...@yahoo.ca> wrote:

[David Yu Greenblatt]

Challenge Parigi-Roubaix are great but have a reputation for flatting easily (I've been lucky so far, knock wood).
The measure 29-30mm on my relatively narrow Velocity Aerohead rims.

- David G, Madison WI

[Michael Hechmer]

Great Question.  It's the same question I posted at the end of the "Where does the Rambouillet fit into the Rivendell Line Thread.  It must haven't gotten lost in the shuffle.  I need new tires for my Ram, so I'm tuned in to this question.

But it depends what you mean by "best".  Jan Heine clearly defines that as lowest rolling resistance and fastest.  GP means, decent speed and most comfortable.  A commuter, who isn't daft in the head, means most puncture resistant.

I really appreciate a light, fast responsive bike and the ride it gives me; but the reality is that VT road shoulders have miles of poor pavement (and even where the pavement is good it might be covered in dried cow poop!) so I want the fastest tire that doesn't feel agonizing after and hour of rough road riding.  JB's, wins hands down in the +30 category; but what's the best choice in the 3o and under arena?

Some have commented on puncture resistance, which I take to mean resistance to sharp objects, but what about the comfort-speed continuum on less than perfect pavement?

Michael, cycling through deadening head winds today.  

[Joe Bartoe]

I commuted and did double centuries on the Grand Bois Cerf green labels for about a year. I had great luck with them. Light, fast, and pretty puncture resistant. For me. Other people may differ in their opinion, but I find that if I unweight my saddle going over stuff, keep and eye out and avoid stuff, and occasionally inspect the tires that they serve me well.

Joe

Joe Bartoe
Synaptic Cycles Bicycle Rentals, Inc.
email: j...@synapticcycles.com
website: www.synapticcycles.com
Twitter: @synapticcycles
phone: 949-374-6079

---

Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:24:46 -0700
From: mhec...@gmail.com
To: rbw-owne...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [RBW] Re: What is the best 28-30 mm 700c tire for fast riding on pavement?

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[David T.]

Thank you for the suggestions.

[Mojo]

Prompted by this thread I changed out the Rolly Poly/Ruffy Tuffy front/rear combo on my road bike wheels to the pair of (what I have considered to be special event) Grand Bois Cerf 28mm tires. I rode them for 25 mountainy miles yesterday and enjoyed their feel immensely. Today I got a front goathead flat. This is the 3rd flat I have had on these tires in about a dozen rides. This is by far the worst flat record of any tire I have used, ever. I understand I cannot say this will be the flat record for me in the future or for you in your environment, but my faith in the tire is shaken and it affects the enjoyment of my ride. I am putting more effort into scanning the road or trying to stay off the dirtier portions of the road instead of enjoying the view or thinking my deep thoughts. {~; 

.

When I got home I fixed the flat, pulled the GB Cerfs and replaced them with the RP/RT combo. As I was changing them, I weighed them on my Park digital spring scale. To the nearest ounce, the Cerf was 10oz, Rolly Poly 11oz, Ruffy Tuffy 13oz, Jack Brown Green 33mm was 12-13oz. All of these tires are made by Panasonic. Now I believe Jan Heine's rollout tire comparisons are valid. But for me to flat every second or third ride is just not worth the lower rolling resistance or an ounce or two of rotating weight.

 

[William]

I'm in the same boat with Pari-Motos.  I flat almost every ride with Pari-Motos, and almost never with anything else.  I've put them back on with Foss tubes to try again.  I like the ride of them, but the flat record is pretty bad for me.  For me it's been glass.  

[Michael Hechmer]

Another single data point.

Along with the post on where the Rambouillet fit in the Riv line up, I rode an 18 mile loop from my home on my Ram with a pair of Continental GP4, 23 mm tires.  (A gift).  The course has 900 feet of climbing and includes 4-5 miles of dirt roads, with the rest equally divided among good pavement, bad pavement, and atrocious pavement.  After the ride I recorded my time & subjective impressions (painful).  I also discovered a cut  in the sidewall of the rear tire, so I decide to replicate the ride with a variety of bikes and ties.  I rode it twice on my Ebisu with Jack Browns.  The first ride was 3 minutes slower but the second was identical, although a lot more comfortable. I rode it once with my Trek & T Serve  (30mm actual).  My time was right between the faster and slower rides & the comfort just a nudge below the JB.  Now the wind has shifted around from the south to the west ( it has been blowing at 20 -25 mph, making this very real world test) and the dirt road has been graded, leaving it's surface full of rocks and loose sand, so it's really hard going now.  Hard to make comparisons.  I'm in Boston for the weekend and heavy rain forecasted for next week so this test will be suspended for a while.

I'm not sure where this leaves me.  I'd like to put the Grand Bois Green on my ram but am wondering if the perceived advantage is worth the added flats.

Michael

[cyclot...@gmail.com]

I have a bit of Goldilocks syndrome w/ tires. I know the perfect one has to be out there somewhere... I've run thousands of miles with Rollies/Tuffies and a few hundred w/ Grand Bois (both 27 and 30mm). The GBs feel absolutely divine. Like nothing else out there. But more goat head punctures than normal, and "chunks" were quickly being taken out of the tires. Just too delicate for my needs. The RP/RTs in comparison feel clunky and the RTs in particular are noticeably slower (non-scientific coasting test down my street). Over time the tread also separates from the casing, but that may be particular to my situation.

To be honest, I haven't found a perfect tire smaller than 33.3mm. Both Jack Brown Greens and Pasela 35mm are absolutely fantastic for me, minus goathead protection (and that's w/ TourGuard tires). I just had a puncture last night from one of them. The JBs slow my steering a little bit on my go-fast bike built for 28mm, but that's the only issue I've had with them. I don't know if that's due to extra mass or change in pneumatic trail from the extra ~5mm.

In the end you're just going to have to put some $$$ out and try to find what works for you. If it doesn't fit your needs, you can easily re-sell the tires and try something else.

On Tuesday, April 17, 2012 12:55:06 PM UTC-7, Mojo wrote:

[Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery]

MichaelH illustrates how little difference it makes. Three minutes is his largest variation in his 18 mile ride on a variety of different tires with different bikes, and that variation wasn't even reproducible in a second trial. I spent seven years in grad school doing science, so I can see that there are confounding factors in Michael's research that muddy the waters. But his over all consistency from tire to tire and bike to bike suggests (if not proves) that tire differences play much less role than, say, the rider's day to day energy level and attitude, wind direction, and countless other factors. Comparing one lightweight 700x28 tire to another is really splitting hairs.

[Ryan Ray]

You can say that every post on this group ever has been splitting hairs. It's part of the fun :)

- Ryan

[William]

agreed.  Even Jan Heine admits that the perception of speed is far stronger than any measurable speed difference in this hair-splitting area.  He rides quality fat tires because he knows empirically that they are no slower at worst and slightly faster at best.  He concedes that narrow tires feel faster despite the measurable fact that they are not.  I remember that every time I see a post "I rode those tires for a while, but they were sluggish and slow".  19 times out of 20, that's a qualitative judgement, not a quantitative one.  

I've been tempted to ask Jan since going fast is fun (for the most part), but since going slow is safe (for the most part), shouldn't he run skinny tires, since they feel fast but are slow?  I know, I'm a jerk, and a smart aleck.  

On Wednesday, April 18, 2012 10:03:07 AM UTC-7, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery wrote:

[cyclot...@gmail.com]

It's what the interwebs were built for!

[William]

Perhaps we should develop our own quantitative metric for the narrowness of the hair being split?  Inspired by the well known engineering unit the RCH.  

SHPI -- splittable hairs per inch?  

On Wednesday, April 18, 2012 10:07:07 AM UTC-7, HappyCamper wrote:

[Steve Palincsar]

On Wed, 2012-04-18 at 10:09 -0700, William wrote:

>
> I've been tempted to ask Jan since going fast is fun (for the most
> part), but since going slow is safe (for the most part), shouldn't he
> run skinny tires, since they feel fast but are slow? I know, I'm a
> jerk, and a smart aleck.

Perhaps you missed these blog postings:

-http://janheine.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/crossing-tracks-safely/
-http://janheine.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/the-downsides-of-wide-tires/
-http://janheine.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/the-dangers-of-narrow-tires/

[Ryan Ray]

I like the term Just Noticeable Difference. Like a 2 degrees temperature difference. We could use NMD. Not Measurable Difference.

Example:"Wow! These Rolly Polys are 5 NMDs better than my Folding Pasela TGs!"

- Ryan

[Patrick in VT]

On Apr 18, 12:45 pm, "cyclotour...@gmail.com" <cyclotour...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>The GBs feel absolutely divine. Like *nothing *else out there.

except tubulars! seriously, with so many folks chasing the holy grail
of speed/comfort (and spending lots on time/money in that pursuit)
it's surprising that more folks don't ride tubulars, at least for that
one "event" wheelset.

[William]

Or perhaps I misused the term smart-aleck?  

[PATRICK MOORE]

BUT! Jan's hypothesis that skinny tires feel faster because they
vibrate more seems to me to be very questionable. Doubtless when,
after six months, I return to my slightly-sub-18-lb gofast fixie after
riding the 30+ lb Fargo, the 30- trike and the 25lb errand Riv, and
find it "fast," this is due to a myriad of factors that cannot, or
only with more expertise and energy than is worth expending, be
reduced to scientifically identified causes. But (1) it does *feel*
faster; (2) it is no slower in concrete-like reality; and (3) all of
this has absolutely nuthin', repeat nothing, to do with road buzz.

In fact, reducing the question to a crudely empirical estimate of
crank rpm in the higher gear (75" comp to, respectively, 69", 70" and
72"), I *am* going faster. Again, no buzz factor.

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[Ryan Watson]

If anything, road buzz makes a bike seem slower to me. I guess because I've always associated noise and vibration with inefficiency.

[Michael_S]

The other new tire out there is the Resist Nomad. I have about 200 miles on the 700x35 model which runs a hair under 33mm. They "feel"  faster than Paselas or JB's, definitely plusher than the Pasela, almost as good as the GB Cypress at less than 1/2 the price. I haven't had them long enough to judge flat resistance ( none yet)  and I've done limited dirt riding so far. The GB's I owned had a casing separation after 700 miles.

All said, I'm very impressed with the Nomads. They also make a 700x45 mm that runs about 42mm from what I've read. And they come in gumwalls!

~mike

On Sunday, April 15, 2012 9:47:12 AM UTC-7, David T. wrote:

What is the best 28-30 mm 700c tire for fast riding on pavement? Or
some good ones?

[Michael_S]

here is a picture of the 35mm Nomad.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37347002@N05/6931879438/in/photostream 

[jimD]

+1

We used the unit of measurement a bunch when I was in the Navy.

JimD

Precision in all things.

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