Thanks for tuning in, this is The Sweet
Cyclists and today we're going to be looking at
the Hutchinson Fusion 5 Galactik
tubeless ready tires. Here we have the
Hutchinson Galactik tires not only do
these tires have a really cool name but
they're one of the highest performance
variations within the Fusion 5 lineup.
You can see packaging wise really simple
they have everything you need on here,
nice high contrast. What's really
cool about Hutchinson is that they make tire
purchasing really easy. You can see
even on the box there is a
nice spider graph comparing the
different variations within the Fusion
5 lineup. There's the Galactik,
Performance and the All Season. With the
Galactik this is a racing specific tire
so its lightness and rolling
resistance is very low on these. It is a
really high performance tire and what you do give
up though however is puncture ability.
Being a lighter tire it's less resistant
to punctures and also the
longevity of this is a little bit lower
so you will have to replace this at
faster intervals. Now I'm gonna go ahead
and take it out of the box we'll go over
the specs. As a part of the Fusion 5
lineup these have the ElevenSTORM rubber
compound. They're 127 TPI so really
supple and you can really feel that
right out of the box they're not quite a
slick tire, it actually does have a
thread here for a little extra grip. It
has a nylon reinforcement within the
center section which provides some
puncture resistance and as I mentioned
the most lightest variation within the
Fusion 5 lineup they're currently only
available in a 700x25 variations.
These are of course tubeless ready with
Hutchinson's really nice flat carbon
bead here and this really grips even if
you have no pressure on your tire, this
thing does not want to let go of the rim.
Now let's take a look at the weight
of the tires,
these are 700 by 25 as I mentioned. One
of the tires comes in at 226 grams so
quite light and you gotta remember with
tubeless ready you don't need a tube but
you do need sealant, and the weight of
the sealant is balanced out by the lack
of a heavy tube. The other tire comes
in
about 228. To do the installation
because the tubeless the rim tape is
already applied it is going to really easy.
I'm just gonna put the tires
on, these are directional so be careful
with that unless you want to do this a
couple times. Now you want to get one
bead on there work your way around so
now that we have one side of the bead on
I'm gonna go ahead and put my valve
on here. This is a removable core
version from Muc-Off, this is really cool
the iridescent paint finished. It costs a
little more money but I think it looks
really cool and it should match the
wheels nicely. I've got this rubber
grommet on here, you just slide on top
I'm gonna go ahead put it through the
valve hole. Now you might be tempted to
really crank down on this with a set of
wrenches but according to Muc-Off it
should just be hand tighten. So I really
just get it in there by hand and go ahead
and put the lock ring on. What's cool
about these or they actually come with a
little gasket on the lock ring to
make sure they stay airtight and again
don't be tempted to over tighten these
or you can definitely ruin them.
Now that's kind of hand tighten I've got
the core already out now I'm gonna start
from the valve and go ahead and start
putting the bead on.
Just like any tire installation you
want to be really careful to not force
it on and damage anything and then of
course the hardest part is always that
last little section in the middle. You
can see it kind of fights you, the trick
to that is I really have to hold both
sides and then work your way in slowly
just putting it on. Thankfully these
Hutchinson tires are quite soft so
pretty easy to do so you see it's
pretty simple. To make the
installation a little bit easier I'm
going to take a little sponge with soapy
water run it along the rim and that
should help the bead pop into place a
little bit easier. Now I'll take the
Tubibooster, I've taken off the core as
well just to make it a little bit easier,
and I'm gonna pop it on here and
hopefully the bead will pop in place. So
you heard that now we'll move it and it
looks like it actually popped in so if
we look around the wheel you can see
it's actually the bead of on even though
we have no pressure with that valve
taken off. Really easy compared to my
other Decathlon bike which I did a
conversion on this one is smooth as
butter. I've already refilled the
Tubibooster, now I'm going to put on
the valve and I've got the valve core off
again and soapy water around the rim.
Let's see how it goes,
there you go nice pop pop pop and then
we'll remove it,
so with these successfully installed I'm
gonna put some sealant on them and we're
gonna get the wheels and tires on the
road. Now let's take the Galactik
tires and Token wheelset on the road.
The Token wheel set is a lightweight
climbing wheel so naturally I went to a
local climb to really assess the
performance. We've already logged a few
hundred miles on this wheel entire setup
to really assess the true nature of them
and we really quite impressed with the
tire and wheel setup. Despite only being
a 700x25 tire it
provides a lot of comfort and takes the
edge off that you normally feel
with a more narrow tire. Really
smooths everything out by while still
providing a lot of feedback. That
results in more confidence especially
when you're descending you can really
throw it in the corners and know you
have enough grip there and enough
feedback to know when to really back off.
Now being in California we don't see a
lot of rain so these tires were a pretty
good match for us if you do a lot more
rain riding we would caution against
using these tires as even Hutchinson
describes them as a optimized wheel for
optimal conditions so these are
definitely a good race tire or just
fast tire if you're in more sunny warmer
conditions. Now let's go over the
Hutchinson Galactik scorecard, we have
four different categories. We have grip,
durability, comfort and value. In terms of
grip I would give the tires in A, they're
really confidence-inspiring. There's a
lot of grip and really good feedback
from the tire so you can really throw it
in corners and know you'll be okay.
Durability wise it is an A-, these are
really optimized for speed which means
it has less puncture resistance than the
other tires on the lineup. We haven't
experienced any punctures yet but this
is not a tire you want to use if you
have a lot of thorns or other kind of
debris on the road.
Comfort wise definitely an A, this might
only be a 700x25, while the current trend
tends to be 700x30 or bigger,
nevertheless provides a really smooth
ride. It really dampens out a lot of the
harshness that you get with high
pressure and more narrow tires. Value
wise I would definitely give these an A. Despite the
higher retail price, as a racing tire
that you can use for a really high speed
events or just fast weekend rides. Thanks
for watching for review if you like the
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