Conti Gatorskin or Top Contact?

robthehungrymonkey

I'm considering new tyres for touring.
700cX28 seem comfy enough on my girlfriends bike, so probably going to stick to that size.

What are the pros/cons of the two tyres below? Which would you recomend and why?

Continental UltraGatorskin - £16, 320g
Continental Top contact £33, 450g

They both are the same size, both offer good puncture protection (in theory).

Can anyone help?

Wooliferkins

Gatorskin is pretty slick. I tour on them no problem but the top contact gives you a bit of tread if you want to do tow paths and bridleways. £16 for a gatorskin bite his hand off, I can barely them trade plus VAT for that!

robthehungrymonkey

Ok, cool. I'll probably give them a go then. The person i'm going with will have them on (and narrower), so should be ok.

I'll post the link after i've bought them!

andymiller

robthehungrymonkey wrote:

What are the pros/cons of the two tyres below?

Continental UltraGatorskin - £16, 320g
Continental Top contact £33, 450g

How about one's 40 percent heavier and twice as expensive than the other?

Check out the Conti website:

http://www.conti-tyres.co.uk/conticycle

According to the site the Top Contact is designed to meet the needs of the German touring market for a German-made tyre for heavy-duty touring (sub-text they are getting creamed by Schwalbe in this market sector). They also say that the Vectran puncture protection used in the Top Contact is lighter and stronger than the Aramid used in the Gatorskins.

If you just want a tyre for general road touring with a bit of bridleway/canal path then in my opinion the Gatorskins would be fine and you should save the money and weight. I've ridden fully-loaded over a broken bottle with Gatorskins with no ill-effect so the puncture-protection is more than adequate.

Wooliferkins

Andy
Agreed to a point. I to ride my gators everywhere but they are skitty on wet unmetalled surfaces and many riders, for whatever reason like a bit of tread. As I said above, £16 retail for a Gatorskin is a great price, I can barely buy them trade+VAT for that. The Top Contact is the latest attempted replacement for the Top Touring. The 2000 version of which was appalling by comparison with it's predecessor. It as heavy as the Schwalbe Marathons but with the bad taste many people have of the TT2000 they will stay with the hugely popular Marathon range.

robthehungrymonkey

Thanks for the help.

I'd pretty much decided on the top contacts until yesterday as i just thought i;d go for the best touring tyre (mainly based on the bike radar reviews). But then for some unknown reason decided to compare the two on the conti site.

I'm not going to be doing any offroading (intentially :? ) so I think i'll go for the gators. You guys saved me £30! Many thanks!

robthehungrymonkey

I've ordered them from Shiny Bikes...

http://www.shinybikes.com/bikes/contine ... -tyre.html

Had to pay £3.47 postage, but still seems like a good deal.

GyatsoLa

A few people have posted bad experiences with the gator skins. I think the C+ review suggested that more than most tyres they have to be kept at their optimum pressure to maintain their puncture resistence. So if using them I'd suggest making sure you bring a good pump with pressure guage when you tour to keep them over 100psi

robthehungrymonkey

GyatsoLa wrote:

A few people have posted bad experiences with the gator skins. I think the C+ review suggested that more than most tyres they have to be kept at their optimum pressure to maintain their puncture resistence. So if using them I'd suggest making sure you bring a good pump with pressure guage when you tour to keep them over 100psi

I will be keeping them high, but they'll be 28 wide, and I think most people have the 23's. That might help with the pressure and pinch flats....

I also think they're very popular tyres (i think every single cyclist in London uses them!) so with that higher usage there will be a higher number of issues, and people only post bad experiences. Thanks for the tips though.

ralex

GyatsoLa wrote:

A few people have posted bad experiences with the gator skins. I think the C+ review suggested that more than most tyres they have to be kept at their optimum pressure to maintain their puncture resistence. So if using them I'd suggest making sure you bring a good pump with pressure guage when you tour to keep them over 100psi

Recommended pressure for 700x28 Gatorskins is 95 psi.
http://www.conti-tyres.co.uk/conticycle ... skin.shtml

andymiller

Wooliferkins wrote:

Andy
Agreed to a point. I to ride my gators everywhere but they are skitty on wet unmetalled surfaces and many riders, for whatever reason like a bit of tread. As I said above, £16 retail for a Gatorskin is a great price, I can barely buy them trade+VAT for that. The Top Contact is the latest attempted replacement for the Top Touring. The 2000 version of which was appalling by comparison with it's predecessor. It as heavy as the Schwalbe Marathons but with the bad taste many people have of the TT2000 they will stay with the hugely popular Marathon range.

Yep, I was basically agreeing with you. If Rob had been planning some 'heavy-duty' touring on bad surfaces then the Top Contacts would have been the one to consider, but probably a bit OTT if you are doing not very heavily-loaded road touring with maybe occasional forays onto (dry) towpaths and bridleways.

robthehungrymonkey

I Hmmmm, I actually hadn't considered the loading... :?

Oh well, too late now. Next year, i'm going to Morroco will be all on road, bbut will have tent etc. Will have to try out the bike fully loaded with them over the next few weeks.

calvjones

Gatorskin all the way. I use them (in 25c) for commuting on road and muddy/gravel cycle paths and have had no problems with P word or lack of grip.

Wooliferkins

As above keep mine around the 100psi mark, no worries.

scruffyduncan

two of just went end to end on gatorskins. The weather was wet and the roads were muddy, but we had no punctures..

zenzinnia

There also seems to be some problem using gatorskins on Sputnik rims. The rims are a little to big and the Gators are usually a tight fi and the two don't go together well.