I Put MTB Tyres on My Gravel Bike… and It’s AMAZING

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Are mountain bike tyres on a gravel bike a good or bad idea? I’ve been testing and comparing mountain and gravel tyres on my Enve Mog for the last few months, and here are my findings

Content
00:00 Intro
00:36 First impressions
1:46 Big downside
2:29 3 Tyres Testing Setup
3:55 Test riding
6:04 Test Results
9:52 Conclusion – Are Big tyres better?
11:01 What will I choose

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[Music] Mountain bike tires on gravel bikes. It’s all the rage right now, but is it a future or a fad? Well, to find out, for the last few months, I’ve been riding my own MV Mog with these Michelang Jet XC2 race tires to find out. And today I’m out in the Cotswwells. Found some pristine gravel to do some time testing with these tires and the power gravel tire, a more typical gravel tire to see whether my future setup is mountain bike tires or gravel tires. Before I do some testing, I have to admit, even though I’m openminded to new technology and new ideas, as always, I was a bit skeptical about the idea of mountain bike tires on a gravel bike. Partly because as a mountain biker and somebody owning a very nice mountain bike, a Specialized Epic 8 with mountain bike tires, that’s fantastic for mountain biking. And this idea, this concept seemed a step too far. And I’ve been very happy with gravel tires from 40s to 45s and more recently 50s on this bike and other bikes I’ve been testing for the last few years here at Just Ride Bikes. But all that said, I’ve been really impressed and surprised at just how good they are. I thought the tires would be slow, sluggish, heavy, but that hasn’t really been the case. There are some negatives, some downsides. I’ll share later in the video, but definitely more sunny uplands, especially when riding what I call tame mountainite trails. Chunky trails with rocks and roots, where the mountain tide definitely gives more confidence and just more control than a gravel tire. But there are some obvious downsides. The Mog officially takes a 50 mil wide tire. These tires measure 56 on these rims. And clearance. Well, there’s not much. Look how tight that is around a fork. That is wh of thin clearance indeed. It’s lucky a trail of dry because a bit of mud would um jam the tires up. And it’s even worse at the back as well. Look how tight that is. And around the chain stay. Yeah, just that it’s not clearance. Right now it’s dry. I mean, look how dusty that is. It’s fine. But come the winter when in the UK you need mud clearance, these tires would not work at all. So that is an issue. I’m testing three tires today. Two power gravel tires and one mant. The mantite tire is a Jet XC2 and 2.25 in the narrowest the company makes and actually measures 56.4 mm on these wheels. The 47 mm gravel tires measure 47.6 while the 57s are undersized at 54 mm. All tires are used on the same 25 mil internal rim width wheels. And as you can see, the obvious benefit of the narrower gravel tires is clearance. Way more clearance around there. Look at that. Loads of space. And around the fork, much more space there. way better for mud clearance. So, yeah, much better fit. And this video is 3 2 1 go. The course I’ve laid out measures 5.9 km, so short enough I can do repeated runs without inducing fatigue between tire and wheel swaps. It starts with a nice smooth section of champagne gravel with a steady climb to a nice long flat section to get a speed up to around 20 mph. We then encountered a first technical challenge, a rough rocky boulder strewn trail and it’s definitely a challenge for any tire to deal with. This then transitions to a smooth single track climb in the trees with dirt and tree roots replacing rocks and boulders. The back half of the circuit is mostly road with rolling climbs and a fast downhill to finish. All testing was done in the same morning on the same day and tire pressure was set by the Silka app. And that is a lap on a mountain bike tires done. I’ve had to stop here because the gate is closed to keep the sheep in the field. So mountain bike tires done. Let’s swap over to the gravel tires and do that run again. Okay, run two on the gravel tires. The power gravel tire measuring 57 mm. So, 3 2 1 go. [Music] [Music] Right. Test number three on the Maris ties. So 3 2 1 go. [Music] Okay. Run three done. So, back to the studio to crunch some numbers. Okay, back in the studio and I’ll share the results of my testing. And it goes without saying, it’s not the most scientific test in the world. I’m not in a wind tunnel. I’m not in a lab. It’s a real world with all its pesky variables. I try to remove as many as possible. I’m using speed and power to ride as consistently as possible. And I’ve aimed for the same average power of 180 watts, which gives me an average speed of around 25 km per hour over the course. So, not going absolutely flat out, but going at a reasonable speed. So, normal riding pace for me. And we’ll start on the mountain bike tires. And they clocked a time of 14 minutes and 34 seconds at an average power of 181 watt. So, 14 minutes and 34 seconds is a benchmark. I then swapped to the the widest gravel tire, a 57 mil power gravel, and did the same test, and they clocked a time of 14 minutes and 23 seconds with an average power of 177 watt. So, a bit less power required. Then to the the skinny gravitize by comparison, a 47 mil gravitize and they clocked a time of 14 minutes and 24 seconds at an average power of 174 watt. So some really interesting data. Not the most conclusive in the world, but shows that there’s not much difference out there in the real world with the tires. Might be different in the lab on a rolling uh drum, but in my real world testing, there’s not much in it at all. But I’m not going to sit here and say one tire is best. It’s not that simple. It’s not black and white. And diving into data a bit more. And based on my months of testing these tires, there are some more nuance differences. And the tire you choose depends on where you ride and how you ride and what you want from your bike setup. So for me, diving into the data, the the gravitars are better on the road, which is no surprise really. The 47 and 57 definitely roll on the road better. And on the chunky stuff, the mountain bike tire has a clear benefit. The confidence those mountain bike tires give on a rocky downhill trail just head and shoulders above both the 57 and the 47. And definitely close between the 57 and the mountain bike tire. But the 47 is definitely way behind those bigger tires on the technical section. And the mount tire is definitely better than the 57. Even though they’re almost the same width, it part down to size. a bigger tire volume helps of course, but I think it’s also the construction of the tire and also the tread pattern as well. That mountain bike tire has a much more aggressive tread pattern than the gravel tire and just seems to give more reassuring levels of grip and traction than that rocky trail when the bike’s sliding around and really scrabbling for grip. I’m really surprised and impressed at how well the mountain bike tires do handle the road though. They’re not way slower than the grabber tires. You can hear the extra drag make more noise than the gravel tires, but riding at 20 miles per hour, say on the road, on a flat road, the drag doesn’t feel that obvious. Not like you’re really pushing the bike through trial, they roll really well. So, I’m really surprised. You can ride the mountain tires on the road and smooth dirt very happily indeed. But the more you push a speed on the road, the more of a handicap they definitely become compared to the 47s and even the 57s. But the mountain bike tires and the 57 mil tires are heavier. They’re both about 700 g compared to 600 for the 47s. So if you care about weight, the 47s will save you 200 g on your complete bike weight compared to the bigger tires. And that could be a factor as well. So, in summary, I am really impressed and surprised at how well the mountain bike tires perform. They’re not as slow and sluggish on the road as I thought they would be, and they’re definitely a massive benefit on the rough, rocky trails compared to the gravel tires, but they have two big downsides, at least on my MB Mog. The first one is clearance or lack of clearance. The other downside to a mountain bike tire is the bike handling is impacted in a negative way. Something I guess about the fork trail and the bigger outside diameter. Just impacts the steering. It’s heavier, not as light and nimble as it is with a smaller tire. It flops a bit from side to side off the the central steering line. So that is a bit of a negative. I got used to it over the last few months, but it’s not really a positive at all. So that’s definitely worth bearing in mind if you are trying to stuff big mountain bike tires into a gravel bike which hasn’t been designed to accommodate them at all. There are bikes out there that will take the tires and hopefully the handling won’t be ruined. Well, not ruined but definitely suboptimal uh which my Mog has proven to be. So going forward, which tires am I leaving on the Moog? Well, I really am impressed with the mountain bike tires. I am surprised, generally surprised at how well they perform and they’re not that slow and sluggish on the road. But as we head into autumn and winter when mud here in the UK will be a factor, the limited clearance on those tires will be an issue. I can’t run them through the winter at all. So they will have to come off. So I think for me the 47s, the 47s probably the sweet spot really. I still think a 45 to 50 mil gravel tire for most people riding road and smooth grab on dirt is all you need. Yes, they’re not as good down the rocky stuff, but you’re not losing much time down the rocky stuff compared to the mountain bike tires and there’s more clearance around the tires for mud and they’re lighter and they roll better on the road. But maybe the perfect tire is somewhere between the mountain bike tire and the 47. Maybe a narrower mountain bike tire would be the preferred choice. But most mountain bike tires are now 2.2 2.4 inch wide as mountain bikes have gone wider and most narrow mountain bike tires like 2in mount tires don’t really exist anymore. So maybe there’s an opportunity for some in between. Not a mount tire, not a pure gravel tire, some hybrid of the two. So yeah, really interesting. Let me know what you think by dropping a comment down below. Um but yeah, that’s all for today. Thank you so much for watching.