Winter tyre

dannyharris

Afternoon all,

So I have a new carrera tdf 2012, I will be using this bike for commuting 20 mile a day and maybe getting into some long weekend rides.

I ride on many country roads covered in leaves and huge puddles, is there a specific tyre I should change to over the winter months?

drlodge

I use Conti Gatorskins which are fine, although on wet roads they can get a bit slippery so may considering move to the 4 seasons tyre.

DavidJB

-1 for Gatorskins awful tyre....slippy in the wet and had 2 side wall splits in 4 weeks.!

BigLights

I use Gatorskins, i'm fine with them re longevity/toughness on the London commute. But they aren't the grippiest in the wet.

Anecdotal evidence: I was at my LBS last night (ironically, after my first fairy visit in a couple of years) - they were discussing the new GP 4 Season tyres which they've been testing, and were totally raving about it - they reckoned it was much grippier, nicer to ride, better feel, and at least on par on puncture proofing compared to Gatorskins.

marcusjb

Conti 4 Seasons - 28mm if you can fit them.

Comfy, grippy, pretty good at avoiding the p&^%*ure fairy and last well.

I use them on two bikes - the commute fixed bike (which at the moment is doing a 50 mile commute 2 or 3 times a week) and the audax bike (which will only do 1-2 200km events each month over winter, but I am still running the same set I put on in July 2011 which have done a 1200 and a 1000km event alongside many 2/3/4 and 600km events!).

On the audax bike since July 2011 - 2 p&^%ures (both on the ride down to Paris for PBP!)

On the commute bike - in the 18 months the first set were on - one p%^%$ure (but that was a snakebite from hitting a massive pothole). I changed the tyres last week for a new set - and guess what? I p^%$ured on Monday evening with a really long flint shard - very annoying!

Tyres are like brake blocks - for every person that says "I swear by these, they last forever, grip like crazy etc.", you get someone who wore them out on the ride to the shops.

All I can say is that in my experience, 4 Seasons are pretty damned good.

dannyharris

Currently running with 700x23 tyres. Think I can fit upto 700x25 on there.

marcusjb

dannyharris wrote:

Currently running with 700x23 tyres. Think I can fit upto 700x25 on there.

25mm 4 seasons should be pretty comfy. 4 seasons measure up quite small anyway (I measure my 28mm tyres as 25mm wide). I am a big advocate for running wider tyres (and it seems the pros are riding 25mm more and more these days).

ricky1980

i sued armadillo on my bike 2 winters no problems. Gator is too slick

Dadmo

+1 for Conti 4Seasons - not yet had a puncture with them.