- Morning motivators, I'm out here
on Vancouver Island, logging roads.
They're icey, they're snowy.
And I am woefully under gunned
with these road/gravel tyres.
These really aren't gonna cut it.
I gotta let out a little bit of the air here.
(air splashing)
I've had three sets of different gravel tyres
in different progressions of gnarliest at home.
I'm gonna do a fair bit of digging
on gravel bike tyres.
I'm gonna work with the company that sent the tyres
and maybe even go to the new local bike shop
that I've made pals with here
to learn how to deal
with all the different types of roads.
Because there's so many different terrains
out here that I'm riding,
that I'm sure you're riding
that you gotta figure out what's going on
with tyres on the gravel bike.
(stepping)
Yep, woefully under gun.
The only way out, is up.
So, let's talk about the basics
of what I know about gravel bike tyres.
Few things, first 35 mils is what I've got here.
This is a very road focused kind of tyre
where you're doing some gravel.
This was perfectly fine back in Manitoba,
not really gonna cut it here.
38 is kind of the cost of doing business.
And then you just get wider and wider,
the more you're going off-road.
Also, I have tubelessized these tyres.
I tubelessize all of my tyres.
If you're willing to do that,
spend about an hour doing it,
you're going to have a much softer experience,
which is I find really, really key,
the more you go off-road.
And especially as you're going gravel,
you wanna have that nice bit of softness.
Because when you take the tubes out
and you go tubeless,
you can actually run at a lower tyre pressure
as opposed to about 50 PSI in a tubed tyre,
I can run about 35 to 40 PSI in this,
still be just as fast,
but have a lot more shock absorption.
You wanna make sure
that you have a tubeless ready tyre for that.
And if you want to start comparing widths of tyres,
different compounds of tyres,
price versus speed in tyres,
it makes a huge difference,
which type of tyre you have,
whether it's tubeless, whether it is tubed,
whether it's wide, whether it's race focused,
what the compound is,
you can go to bicyclerollingresistance.com
or just search for that.
And they rank all the tyres
that they've tested in order of
most to least fast,
most to least durable.
And you can find a sweet spot for you.
But those guidelines of 35 mils,
ideally tubeless, that's going to get you started.
But what type of tyre should you be looking for?
Let me show you the different kinds.
'Cause we got tyres.
We got all kinds of gravel bike tyres here.
So these have been sent out to us by American Classic,
we don't have any sort of sponsorship agreement with them.
They just launched this tyre lineup
and they sent them out and said,
"Hey, think you might enjoy these."
They've got a cool sidewall, so I do.
When you start looking at gravel bike tyres
and mountain bike tyres,
you're going to notice
that the center of the tyre tends to be smoother
than the outside.
The reason for that
is that the outside is for gripping,
the center is for rolling.
You can see the difference a little bit better
on this knobbier version
and see that the center knobs
are quite a bit less prominent
than the outside knobs.
The reason for that is,
when you're rolling straight,
you want less resistance.
When you're curving on the side,
you want more resistance.
You want more grip.
You want to turn lean into that tyre
and keep that knob sitting on the ground.
So that's why tyres are designed
the way that they are.
This one here is the middle of the road tyre
and you see the exact same thing.
Smaller, smoother in the middle,
little bit knobbier on the outside.
You can see here that it's not a gravel bike tyre,
is a gravel bike tyre,
is a gravel bike tyre.
These are all very different.
Here, we have something that would be very good
for being on the road,
but then also when you get off-road,
you still have some of the knobs on the side.
Here, we have something that's just a little bit burlier.
So, if you need knobs while you're riding away,
because maybe you're in some loose gravel,
some loose sand, you still need traction,
but then you need that bigger
burlier tread on the outside,
you've got that.
And then, you've got the big kahuna over there.
So it's not the same.
If you go on mostly road
and then just a little bit of gravel for connector,
but you're using this tyre,
you're gonna be dropped in the dust
because everyone is gonna be so much faster than you.
On the other hand, if you're going off-roading
and you're trying to use this,
basically like I was,
you're gonna be slipping and sliding
all over the place.
So, this is where I'm not entirely sure
what is the best option for around here.
And this is where I'm gonna go
to my new local bike shop here on Vancouver Island
and find out which would be the recommendation
based on which type of riding you're gonna do.
Let's start with Logan Lan Boco.
Now, he's the guy that sent me
all of those gravel bike tyres
that I showed you.
And I wanted to ask him
what actually distinguishes a good tyre
from a bad tyre?
Because I have in the past
had tyres that they look like tyres,
they feel like tyres,
they smell like tyres,
but when you start riding them,
they just feel muddy.
And if you look at the differences in tyres,
when you start looking at performance
of what's faster versus what's more durable,
there's definitely a clear difference,
even though they all look like tyres.
So I want to ask him a few questions
on how do you distinguish a good tyre
from a bad tyre, essentially?
- Having a dependable tyre,
a tyre that you're confident in
is as important in the uncertainties of gravel
as anything else.
How much does a difference from rubber compounds make
and how do athletes know they've got a good like tyre?
That is a very layered question.
It's that the rubber compound, the construction,
the flat protection,
all of those things really work in harmony together.
They are very much dependent on one another.
- Very interesting stuff.
Now, I wanna head over to the new bike shop
that I'm working with here,
because I've got those three different versions
of the gravel bike tyre.
And I wanna make sure
that I know why I'm using each
of the different gravel bike tyres
in each of the different scenarios,
going from the most slick,
I imagine the most fast
to the most gnarly tyre.
Which one would I pick in what scenario?
- Hi, I am Lazarus.
I have a bike store here in Qualicum Beach,
a beautiful British Columbia on Vancouver Island.
And we help people be happy.
- Oh, what do we have here?
- Out of the bag first impressions, quality manufactured.
And you can feel the quality in the tyres.
And the tread patterns
look like any other good tread pattern
that I've seen from any manufacturer.
Everyone's gonna have a dry, fast rolling tyre.
So, center bead, some side knobs to hook up.
Even if it's dry,
most people are gonna use this all arounder
fast and the dry,
little more effective than the wet.
And these knobs now stand up by themselves.
And then of course your wet tyre,
still gonna be fast in a hard pack.
But now you've got a lot more depth
in your middle knobs
and then more depth in your side knobs.
And they're wider spaced
to even give you more bites.
- Why would you be somebody
who would choose exclusively the wet?
- I just mounted up three tyres today
for full wet tyres.
Just basically, because it's just so wet here
on the West Coast.
- So literally, if you're riding a lot and it's wet?
- Yeah, in the winter.
Yeah, so they're gonna be getting out.
These people are gonna be getting out
and doing mix gravel and actual single track, tracks.
So, you could do that on the dry tyre though.
Really depends on how much control you want.
You're gonna have a lot funner and safer time
on the actual wet tread.
- What about road or off-road?
So, I thought that this would be like the Manitoba tyre
where it's 50% road, 50% just flat gravel.
- Yes.
- And then this would be,
if it was more like 80% gravel
and like, am I right?
- Yeah, 100%.
- But then if you start going around here
where it's wet to it's off-road,
there's some mud, you want that.
- You want that tyre.
Still gonna roll fast
with the way those center knobs link up.
They look like well-designed tyres
just from a layman's point of view.
- Would you Mount this up in the winter?
And then one of these two in the summer?
Would anyone do that?
Is that,
- That's how I would run it, yeah.
- Why would you go between that and that?
'Cause they sound like they're very similar.
- Well, that is it an actual hard,
that's basically a road tyre tread
and this is gonna actually give you more control.
Especially when it comes to breaking.
All those little broken up knobs there,
are gonna actually give you better braking control.
But a 40 C wide tyre,
that's a real good all around width.
It's fast, it's still fast
and you can run it at a lower pressure
and cover a lot of ground.
If you only had this tyre for a wet day, you'd survive.
If you could only buy one tyre
by their mix in a perfect world,
you'd have all three.
- Okay, so that is gravel bike tyres.
That's all you need to know.
Thanks to American Classic
for sending out the goods.
I'm set up for the year.
Thanks to new pals at the LBS, at Big Grin Bikes
and Laz, for setting this up.
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Later motivators.