I Tried SUPER Wide Tyres On My Gravel Bike But There Was 1 BIG Problem

Running super wide or mtb tyres on a gravel bike seems to be one of the best upgrades you can make to a gravel bike in 2025 so we thought we’d copy the gravel racing pros and see if mountain bike tyres on a gravel bike actually makes it better…

In the video Jamie tries out 2.2″ (55mm) mtb tyres on his gravel bike – a Lauf Seigla to decide whether they’re better than his usual 45mm gravel tyres. Which are the best gravel bike tyres and what are the best width gravel bike tyres? Jamie from Cycling Weekly thinks a 50mm tyre is perfect for most gravel cycling here in the UK.

Let us know what size gravel bike tyres and the best gravel bike upgrades you’ve made in the comments below…

We may earn a commission when purchasing through affiliate links in this description.

Subscribe to Cycling Weekly here: https://www.youtube.com/user/CyclingWeekly1?sub_confirmation=1

More at:
Cycling Weekly: http://www.cyclingweekly.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CyclingWeekly
Instagram: https://instagram.com/cyclingweeklymagazine
Twitter: http://twitter.com/cyclingweekly
Email: cycling@futurenet.com

#cycling #bikes #bicycles

There’s your conclusion. Wide tires won’t help you if you’re crap at off-roading. [Music] Have you seen the size of these? These are my new gravel tires. I haven’t used them yet, as you can see. They’re fresh out the box, but I’m going to see if I can be converted to mountain bike tires on my gravel bike. Basically, uh, you’ve probably seen mountain bike style or mountain bike width gravel tires being used in lots of top tier gravel races. So, Unbound, loads of people were using 50 mil tires, whereas 45 mil used to be wide on gravel. No longer. And if your frame can fit them, then apparently we should all be fitting really wide tires like these. These are Continentals Race King. They’re 2.2 in wide. Luckily, the L can fit 57 mil tires, so there’s a bit of room to spare. The physics is kind of a bit counterintuitive, though. Like, wider tires, we’ve been told for so many years, is slower, and now all of a sudden we’re being told they’re faster. I mean, there’s no way that it’s more arrow. So, can it make up for it in rolling resistance? Well, I’m going to try and find out. I’ve got a race at the weekend, a gravel race. It’s called Gripfest. It’s in Mid Wales. And uh I’ve done it for the last 3 years now. It’s one of my favorite gravel events and I’m I’ve been a bit torn on what bike to use, what tires to use, but for the last 3 years I’ve used Mal Seagler with the suspension fork at the front and 45 mil Schwabby G1s. I’ve been quite happy on it. There’s some stages where you feel like you might want a hard tail mountain bike. There’s other really fast bits where you feel like it’s definitely gravel bike territory. So maybe this will be the best of both worlds. Or maybe I’ve just absolutely ruined my gravel bike. It’s only one way to find out, isn’t there? I have just realized a slight issue. This front tire I’ve put on backwards. You see around here it says rotation. There’s an arrow which quite clearly goes not the way it’s going to spin. That’s what you get when you fit tires at 10:00 at night. Okay, we’re ready to ride. Um, I am intrigued to see how these tires perform. Um, we haven’t had any issues with them so far. So, uh, let’s go on a ride. [Music] Well, I’ve written about 10 m so far and I’ve spotted an issue already. Um, I now get to overlap. So where I actually have my cleats quite far I have my foot quite far back and even so yeah that’s going to be really annoying when going slowly and trying to like do any technical bits. Maybe we should just all have hard tail mountain bikes if we want to run mountain bike tires. Am I going to remove my cleats? Am I going to put up with it? Or am I going to change my tires? Nah, let’s just crack on. [Music] Uh yeah, pretty positive on stuff like this. They definitely feel nice. I haven’t done any like long really straight fast bits yet. All the fast bits I’ve done have actually been a little bit rocky. So I guess find out there whether they’re more draggy, whether there’s that arrow penalty and whether you can feel that. What I would say is if you have a rock like that, if you’re on like a 38 mil or a 40 mil gravel tire, then you’re going to want to go around that. Um on my 45 mil gravel tires, you’d be absolutely fine going over it. Like no problems. But would I choose to go around it? Yes, probably. If I saw that on the track and there was a clear bit here, I would probably choose to go around it. The wider your tire, the more you can go over basically or more it’s comfortable to go over. The more you can go over without losing speed or rolling off the side of it. And what I have found is on these tires, I just don’t care as much what I’m riding over. Like on a track like this, there’s basically nothing that you can’t ride full pelt at. So, that’s quite nice. Um, but yeah, now to go and find some climbs because obviously a penalty of using wider tires is usually additional weight. And if there’s not a weight penalty, then it normally means they’ve got really fragile sidewalls and you’re going to tear it as soon as you hit anything rocky. So, yeah, generally bit of a weight penalty. Let’s go and find out if that makes any difference. [Music] Test two. Come on, big tires. I haven’t cleared this hill before. Can I clear them on the mountain bike tires? Let’s go. I mean, I’m kind of glad I’m on these ones, to be honest. Oh, that’s quite loose there, though. Oh dear. Oh dear. I didn’t choose to be over here. Ah, no. I still haven’t cleared it then. Oh well. Need to find a good spot. Get going again. Right, we should be all right from there. Right, wide tires. Be grippy. I’m not clipped in. [Music] [Music] Yes. H planned my celebration and everything. Now I can’t use it. To be honest though, I would rather be on these tires for that. My opinion at the moment is it depends what gravel you want to be riding. If you want to ride more mountain bikey stuff, use mountain bike tires on your gravel bike. Although actually then you would just get a hard tail mountain bike. And that is something that I do strongly believe in. There’s lots of manufacturers pushing you towards a gravel bike or like trying to tell you that that’s the greatest thing in existence. I do agree they are great because a lot of people need to ride on the road to get to their off-road. However, if you have a road bike, potentially an all-road bike. If you don’t race, you can basically get away with having an all-road bike. You can do dusty trails on that. And then if you want to go off off-road hard tail mountain bike, which of course you can still use on the road, it just might be a bit more draggy. So is the answer putting mountain bike tires on your gravel bike? Yes, it probably makes it better. But is a hard tail mountain bike not even better? That’s the next question I need to answer. onwards. [Music] Ah, well, test ride number one done. They’ve done enough to convince me to use them at the weekend. So today we’ve sort of been well almost purely on either this sort of terrain uh like fire roads or much rockier stuff. And on here I’ve been enjoying them. I’ve been uh sold. However, I must admit we haven’t done a lot well I haven’t I barely touched any tarmac at all and I haven’t done much fast stuff. I don’t think I’ve gone above like 25 kph the entire day. So, it’ll be interesting at the weekend to see when things do get a bit faster cuz there’s a real mix of stages. Some of them are quite technical, uh, rocky like some of the stuff we’ve done today, and then other bits are just half an hour segment, go rolling, but fast, open fire track like this. So, yeah, intriguing. Um, from what I’ve seen so far, not a bad effort from the mountain bike tires at all. [Music] Right, before we get on to the conclusion of this video, please do make sure you subscribe to the channel because, well, it really does help us make as much bike content as possible. So, yeah, click the button and uh without further ado, here is the bike that I used for Gripfest. So, this is the setup that I chose to use. And as you will see, it does indeed have the wide tires still fitted. And in the end, I think that that probably was the right decision for me because, well, in typical Welsh fashion, the the weather took a turn for the worse and uh it was no longer quite so dusty off-road. And I am 99% sure that the wide tires are the faster option. Now, it’s very hard to measure aerodynamics in the real world, but lots of pros, all those pro riders Unbound that you see using wide tires, they have had plenty of wind tunnel time. And if they’re doing it, then it’s quite easy to imagine that me and you traveling at much lower speeds inevitably, then there’s even more benefit to using wide tires. So, let’s get into that a bit deeper. On descents, I was definitely more confident and less wary of my line choices when using these tires. On technical sections, I was glad of the additional grip. And on the road, I was pleasantly surprised by how well these Race Kings rolled. Wide tires sound like a nailedon winner then. But my choice does come with a few caveats. I hate saying it depends, but it it really does depend. It depends on what gravel you will be riding. If you just want to do some light toe paths and things like that, then fit a 45 mil fit and forget. You don’t need anything wider. However, if you want to travel as fast as possible over a whole range of gravel surfaces, then I think basically fit as wide as your frame will allow. And that’s a good point actually because a lot of frames won’t take tires this wide. And well, that makes your decision quite easy, doesn’t it? Now, I do think that bike manufacturers are going to have to listen to consumers and the science and start making their clearances a lot wider. And they have, to be fair, a lot of even the race bikes, race gravel bikes that we’ve seen released this year have got those wider clearances. That Villia Rave ID2 springs to mind. Now, I say that fit as wide a tire as possible. And then I’m actually going to contradict myself almost immediately because what I now want to do to this bike is move down to a 50 mil tire. So these are 55 mil, 2.2 in. I think a 2.1 in or 50 mil is going to be the sweet spot for my riding and this bike. And I’m hoping I’m making that decision because I’m hoping that it will eliminate that toe overlap that you saw I got earlier. Therefore, hopefully I can have all the benefits of big tires without any of the negatives. In conclusion, then, wide gravel tires have done enough to convince me that they are a genuine option rather than just a gimmick. Let me know whether you agree or disagree with my tire choice down in the comments below, as well as any questions that you’d like us to answer on the channel next. We’ll see you next