Which Tyres?

Looking for some suitable 700c tyres for a London to Paris ride on my gravel bike (Arkose). Currently have WTB Expanse in 32 for general pottering about and they ride OK but they seem to cut really easily.

The route is mainly road, in summer so mainly dry I hope, prefer tubeless, something in the 37-40 size range?

Light, strong, puncture resistant, fast , comfortable and grippy sort of unicorn desired!

Ah, thanks for the tip but should have precised I’m based in France (so postage + customs might be an issue) and also would prefer an all-black tire 😬

Horizons come in all black

Teravail cannonball worth a look if you are going to be going off road and want the grip, I found it fine on roads - didn’t feel super slow.

You might also look at a flavour of g-one

Yes yes I know all three I am hesitating between (gravelking sk wtb venture and wtb horizon) come in black but I was just answering that the ones on ribble at 12£ are not all black!

Finally, something I feel qualified to answer! My touring friend had the Horizon Plus and was pretty happy with them, but struggled a bit on singletrack/bumpier gravel roads, especially when it was wet with slippy rocks/roots. The Venture Roads gave that tiny bit more confidence off-road (could've been psychological, who knows) and were perfectly fine on-road.

I'm not sure about your bike handling skills but as always, YMMV.

Thank you for the feedback! I think I’m leaning towards the venture as they seem to have more grip, with good rolling on road and good resistance from what I can read, which seems supported by your comment. Thanks!

What about some 38' Sawtooths?

I've found them to be the best 'all road' tyre going, and they have steong sidewalls if you're carrying luggage on the bike.

I've run all of those tyres to an extent. I have no real qualms with any of them (Panaracers are very supple and can be hard to fit if you don't have a good tape job). I mostly used Horizons on road and things like Chiltern Ridgeway. Panaracer SK+ I used with no issues at Badlands and Ventures I still have kicking around - I think there's one on the wheel I replaced with dyno front wheel. They stood up to some abuse and obviously offer a bit more grip than Horizons.

Basically any of them will be fine on what you're riding - you just adjust your speed in corners or accept a bit of slip in mud accordingly.

Vittoria Terreno Dry.

Edit. Just seen "mainly road" so Terreno Zeros

G-One Allround? Did C2C on them in 35 mm and really liked.

Cheers @hippy I’d forgotten about the thickslicks. I think I need to work out if I really ‘need’ the 60mm ( the G ones come up at 64mm on a 30mm int rim) or a smaller tyre will be enough, I mean 47mm + is hardly a narrow tyre…hmmmm

Vittoria terreno zeros or drys

I wore out a 30c Schwalbe pro one in the rear in about 2500km... I'm pretty heavy but it still seems like it's not much. How much are you guys getting out of your roadbike tyres?

4000km of TCR on the back for something like a GP4000 28mm or Michelin Pro Endurance 28mm. Would probably add another couple of thousand km to that afterwards, depends how cut up they were from gravel stuff.

I just rode 500km of shitty Wessex lanes using 28mm Michelin Pro Endurance, the same tyres that have done TCR etc. There's no real need to go for anything super durable unless you really don't wanna mend a puncture or you definitely will be on rougher stuff.

There's always a compromise somewhere but you can ride road bike tyres over a lot of stuff!

@King_Saxlingham @leggy_blonde @exteroceptive

Thanks all, some great suggestions there.

I found these that looked quite a bargain: https://www.merlincycles.com/schwalbe-g-one-speed-performance-race-guard-folding-gravel-tyre-700c-129402.html

Bargain.

I would choose specialized pathfinders over these three, it's a much better tyre for that type of use IMO and rolls really fast on road

Used to love pathfinders, but with a loaded bike found them very sketchy to corner on road.

They're great unloaded though.

Ta @hippy I love a bit of under biking and as you, have ridden tons of miles on towpaths etc with 25s etc, but for this thing I want a BIG volume tyre that’s not too slow on the road, but there will be sand involved at some points. I’ve ridden on sand with both 650x47b and 2.1x27.5 and it was much easier on the fatter tyres. I don’t think it was the knobs that helped, just their size. So my thinking is a big 700c 29er slick would work well?

Liz swears by her 42c sawtooths.

I found sawtooths a bit slow but comfortable and quite puncture resistant

On sand it's all about lower pressure and bigger contact patch. So, bigger volume tyres means you've got further to go. But how much riding on sand are you doing? Did you move to a beach house or something?

Plenty of 27.5" bigger tyre options if you wanna go huge. Then it's the frame that is the limiter.

I wish we’d moved to the sea, but I’m near a river in Norfolk so it’s only a matter of time before the sea moves to me ;)
I’ve a plan that involves a ride to the coast and then seeing how far I can get along the shoreline (so far I’ve gone 2.5 miles in one chunk) and then off continue. Ride home and repeat. So no need for a fat bike just yet. It won’t be on the MS, I’ve an eye on a rigid XC bike.

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A rigid XC bike eh? I've still got 2xInbreds sat here for sellz along with 26x2.3 balloon tyres that would be perfect for your project :D https://www.lfgss.com/comments/12115134/ https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/379121/

I'm still think about sending the green one to Oz. With tubeless at low pressure it'll be great for all the sand and the thorns. If I can take most of the parts off it, I could probably get it quite a bit smaller (frame and wheels basically) and that might make postage reasonable.

Thinking aloud again.