I don’t race, so I can choose the luxury of running my vintage MTB with 26x2.2 (559x64) Race King Protection. They are so comfy, enough tread to deal with winter messiness and surprisingly fast. Our gravel roads tend to have fairly big rock and I prefer big tires.
I also ride 700x32 sometimes if I’m just riding roads and crushed stone trails but would prefer a bit wider even for that.
Otto