I haven’t seen this posted on here so thought I’d share.
I use to be a Dylan Johnson truther and ran thunderburts and conti race kings and thought mtb tires were better in every way . While fun on gravel I found myself avoiding pavement like the plague. They just weren’t fun on pavement. Recently switched to Tufo 45s… and gotta say I enjoy them more. The mtb tires were a bit overkill for the gravel I am doing. With the tufos I am linking a lot more gravel segments with pavement, and (to me), it gets me back more to the “spirit of gravel” of mixing pavement and gravel. And also sometimes it is fun to be underbiked on some parts. When mtb the guys who get my respect are those that go out on some techy mtb trails with a fully rigid bike.
I post this also because it annoyed me (as much as some random internet comment can) how dogmatic some Dylan Johnson truthers were here by saying things along the lines of mtb tires are always faster than gravel… if you don’t believe me look at brr or listen to Dylan Johnson… or anyone who buys a bike with max 45 tire clearance is wasting their money etc… whenever I saw these comments I thought to myself these people must not be paying the 10 bucks to see rolling resistance at pressure you should be running per Silca tire pressure calculator. Props to Dylan Johnson for actually doing this in his test.
I say all of this because I have some friends who are in the new bike market and have been so focused exclusively on tire clearance and settled for bikes that may not suit them best. If any of you all are out there in the new bike market take, my 2 cents would be, to take an honest look at the riding you will be doing and pick the bike accordingly. If you think you will be riding super chunky stuff and need mtb tires, then by all means go with that. If you will be linking tame gravel with pavement segments don’t be afraid of a bike with less tire clearance. For a lot of xc single track 45 is plenty. Also remember if you ain’t racing, speed isn’t everything… how fun the bike is should be sole priority.
I’m just some rando on the internet so take what i say with a grain of salt.
by AdElectrical643
6 Comments
I watched that same video and took it as confirmation that I should keep running medium-narrow tires. Even my gravel heavy rides are 50% pavement, and I hate feeling slow on the road more than anything.
You earned my upvote, but I think he basically makes this point in the video, doesn’t he? That you should evaluate the course and choose accordingly? And if you want you can take his findings under advisement? Or not?
To add on to your racing point, most of us aren’t hammering in an unfriendly pace line where visibility dictates that hazards just have to get absolutely eaten by your tire. DJ has to factor 😏 that.
I really appreciate him using his hard earned access to push the envelope, challenge conventional wisdom, and share his findings with me, who is just some other rando on the internet who didn’t even clear a 1000 miles last year but has a lot of fun consuming cycling content. Like, Keegan is fast and stuff but he doesn’t really share anything with us, does he?
His video didn’t say MTB tyres were always better. In fact he pointed out mostly pavement routes would be better on narrower tyres at higher pressures.m
I think his main point was that light XC tyres are better technology than most gravel tyres on technical gravel and reduced punctures more despite the thinner casing.
Have you listened to any of the Bonk Bros podcasts? He has in depth gone into, along with Drew, why they wouldn’t run mountain bike tires at certain races. Even prior to this video coming out, they were discussing on there why, even though BWR AZ has some heavy MTB sectors (including through the entirety of an XCO course), the mixture of surfaces being 60%-ish pavement with a large paved climb means at most running a 50. Anything else is too much drag.
People jump on the “oh DJ says wide tires are always faster” bandwagon without listening to any of his caveats in the past. If you’re racing gravel seriously and often, you need at least 3-4 sets of tires to account for the variance in different courses and also conditions when you get there (hello, mud years at Mid South and Unbound). There is no blanket “run 2.1 Thunder Burt or 2.2 Contis and you’re golden,” and he’s never insisted that
I mean, I’m not saying you’re wrong but you didn’t really provide any data to support your claim. In defense of BRR and DJ, they provide some data. And, also in their defense, they DON’T actually ever say that MTB tires are ALWAYS faster. In fact Dylan’s new thing is deep wheels with 30mm internal width and tires with a a WAM of about 40mm to line up with the 40mm external width of the wheel. And then again, it’s all highly dependent on what wheels you have will determine what tires make sense and what terrain you mostly ride. BRR gives most of the Tufo tires a 5 out of 5 as well.
Thanks Jake. How’s the snow in Truckee?