everyone seems to be on the vittorias lately
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Whatever one canyon has made for them.
nothing buy love for donnelly over here. i only wish they would come out with the LAS in tubeless.
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3x flats on my Horizons in 24 hours led to ordering the 48mm Gravel Kings cuz cheap and wanted to try something different.
Set up great, seated at around 35psi on my i25 rims. Put em at 25psi to ride home from work and holy shit they are the least comfortable tires I’ve ever ridden. Riding milled road surface was pretty much unnoticeable on Horizons but on the GKs the vibration goes right on up to my hands.
That said, only rode for 30 minutes so hoping for improvement.
Installed my first tubeless today! Came with Trail Kings, now I have Thunder Burts. Pumping below 40psi is weird…
How many flats did you get? I bet riding on balloon animals would feel pretty supple for 10 feet. It’s about balance between comfort and reliability.
You were riding horizons with tubes? I had the same experience. Went from horizons to gravelkings and was shocked at how slow the gravelkings felt. The horizons went back on 2 days later
My take from bikeshopland - GKs are a revelation to people who’ve been riding on gatorskins etc for a long time. Most of the people IRL who’ve raved about them to me had recently switched from some might-as-well-be-solid-rubber tire to GKs. I don’t know any supplelyfe adherents who’re running GKs.
Interesting. I went GK because the consensus here was that Horizons weren’t exactly supple and that the GK was closer to Compass without the price. Previous tires to GK were Pari Motos and Soma GR.
I won’t spend compass money on tires that aren’t known for decent flat protection.
I’ve tried the GK slicks in four different sizes and they’ve been wildly inconsistent in ride quality. The 650bx42 and 700cx38 have been good, more supple than not and roll well. The 650bx48 and 700x32 ride like iron, worse than gatorskins. They feel like injection molded plastic in your hand.
I had serious flat issues with the first supple tires (Hetres) I used but since then I’ve had no flats on the 3 compass tires I’ve worn out. Tubeless seems to resolve the issue, even if the sidewalls do get a little weepy after a couple thousand miles.
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I had gk 650x42 and liked them.
They were not as good as the compass but they were more robust and needed less milk.
I think a 42 Horizon would be great. I like them best for the reliability/ease of tubelessness and feel ratio but would be nice to have a smaller lighter option. Plus I don’t think they ever wear out.
Is there any special consideration for running Hetres tubeless? I searched around and didn’t see anything specific so I suspect the answer is “no” but figured I’d ask first. They’re recent production so the bead is visually similar to the tubeless compass bead.
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So if it’s a size specific thing, my GKs are 650X42. Another bonus was that they are significantly lighter than similarly priced options. The 48s pretty heavy so maybe that’s the cause for such different reviews.
I also have 650X48 GK and they are the SK. I only really ride them off road so can’t really say much about ride quality. They felt good on D2R2 roads, conditions were peanutbuttery with very fast descents. I felt really confident on them.
Anyone ever tubeless Continental Speed King 27.5x2.2? They slot in right between the EL and regular Switchback Hill in weight. Not officially tubeless though.
YMMV but I’ve tubelessed a lot of tires that didn’t officially hold the badge and never had a failure.
Totally believe it. I expect these to still work better than Compass.
I have a friend running the 26 inch version. He had them tubeless at first and then a cut from a screw wouldn’t seal, so he uses tubes in them now. I have a 650b pair and will try them soon and let you know. Haven’t ridden his bike much but in the hand they feel as supple as the liteskin thunder burts, but with lower profile knobs on the edge. Unfortunately they measure true, so at 55mm they’re not a great fit with 60mm fenders. The last shop I worked at always had leaky sidewall problems with all contis, so with this casing I would expect them to take a lot of sealant to stop leaking.
whoa those are a solid 100g more supple than my powerblocks
might be my next tire
Yep they’re p. good on paper aside from the whole not being officially TC thing. The heavy version of Burts is only 35 grams heavier fyi.
Horizons were tubeless. In the year that I got out of them I had 4 flats, 3 of them being in the last day of using them. Gonna try going even lower into the 20s on the GKs.
I put GK 650b x 42s on sups bike a bit ago and she’s been loving them, so I’m hoping that they end up being ok.