Wanting to do more gravel/dirt tracks.
Anyone have any experience with gravelking ss particularly 28mm? Pros and cons. Currently I've got 28mm Hutchinsons that blows up to about 30mm on the Reserves which gives me about 3-5 mm clearance.
by Next-Elderberry7285
7 Comments
Would die 💀 on anything more than hard pack road. It’s not just tyre clearance geometry makes a big difference on technical off road.
Can’t speak to the 28mm GK’s but I was running the 32mm version for a while and riding some relatively chunky gravel. It’s obviously not ideal, definitely on the skinny side and you will have to choose between riding them too hard and feeling like your teeth are going to fall out, or riding them too soft and dealing with constant pinch flats. Saying that, I found them to be a really fun and fast tyre, smooth on the tarmac, good enough on gravel. I was running them tubeless and still dealing with too many flats. I’m now running a set of pathfinders with Vittoria tyre inserts. No flats since the swap.
I have 32mm SK+ currently and I ride on smooth and not so smooth gravel, and occasional single-track. I like them but I come from 28mm road tyres and can’t really compare with anything else.
I have them on my road bike but the SS Plus, they are very supple, rolls fast on pavement and good for smooth light gravel. But I wouldn’t take it on anything more. It’s not the tires that I’m worried about but the bike itself. I don’t think. road bike can take that much punishment off-road.
Offtopic, but how did you mount that KNOG light to the computer mount? I’m looking for a similar set up with my aero bars.
To me all I see is a road bike…
I run 32mm gravel kings on my cyclocross bike on 23mm rims and they come out to 33mm. I’m running 40/42 psi based on the silca tire pressure calculator and I’ve still got tubes because I’m lazy and never set up my tubeless.
I objectively take them on stuff that is way to sketchy long gravel rides, twisted rooty single track, bushwhacking through old abandoned trails when doing some exploring, ended up on a downhill jump trail last week by mistake. They are awesome, my go to cross tyre, great grip in loose stuff like sand and still give great performance on wet grass and muddy tracks, I’ve not had any issues on the road they corner great even in loose dirt, mud gravel and pavement.