The road tires I've been using

Since I picked up some new tires recently I thought I might as well write about them, and the other stuff I've been using. My go-to has always been the 23mm Continental GP4000, since that's what my caad 9 came with when I bought it. I liked them well enough and just kept buying the same thing. It turns out they're one of the best options for general riding and racing- they're pretty durable, and score really well in rolling resistance tests. They've done a few updates so the current version is called the GP4000S II. I guess one of these days they'll go to GP5000?


So, like I said they've been great, but riding and racing in montana on a 23 doesn't always work out. The first race I ever did was the speedwagon classic in Polson and I got a flat, shredded the rear sidewalls, and generally had a horrible time. I swore to never bring a road bike to that race again but then for some reason did just that a few weeks ago, but with Maxxis re-fuse 28mm slicks (it was still a bad idea). Originally I bought one to use on the rear of my cross bike on rides and races that were going to be mostly paved, while keeping a wider semi-slick up front. The idea was low rolling resistance but still having some front grip when things got loose. It worked ok but I would be better off with a bigger slick like a clement strada in 32 to do the same thing.

The refuses are pretty much bomb proof and great for general riding around, especially in the spring and on mixed surfaces. The downside is that they are heavy and slow. Go from nice, light, high thread count tires to a set of these and you will wonder what is wrong with your bike. I don't particularly want to try road racing on them, and actually I don't even want to bring them out on the Wednesday night ride. Since it turned out my caad has reasonable tire clearance, I started looking at bigger "spring classics" race tires, like the challenge paris roubaix. They're nice, hand made, and with a high thread count, but expensive. As luck would have it, I found some Vittoria open paves for cheap from one of those euro bike parts stores. For $36 each and free shipping I have 320tpi, 27mm, "open tubulars" designed for racing on rough surfaces.

So far, so good. They are wider, so there's more aero drag, and heavier, but they roll smooth and fast and don't seem to be much slower than the continentals. I did some climbs on them today and while you feel a little bit of squish sometimes, my times on strava weren't noticeably slower. I'll get to put them to the real test over the next two weekends, with the Rocky Mountain Roubaix on the 24th and then MT hell ride the 30th. They both feature fast sections of smooth pavement as well as dirt. I've already ridden them on parts of the roubaix course and it went well so hopefully things go better than last year.

Also I measured all three tires on the same mavic wheels if anyone is curious.
23mm GP4KSII: 24.5mm
27mm Vittoria Pave: 26mm
28mm Maxxis Refuse: 27mm

So the continentals run big- I could probably have just gotten them in 25 and they would measure about the same as the other two. The GP4k is also available in 28, and I hear it can actually measure over 30mm, so they probably won't even fit. I'd also like to get some new wheels with a wider profile so that will bump up the volume a bit.