Originally Posted by
CarloM
My gravel/commute bike has Panaracer GravelKing SK TLC 38s at 45psi because I obviously do very different style of riding on it. Surprisingly though, even on that gravel bike, on my normal route I can get maybe 85-90% of my typical speeds (according to Strava) so even with a chunkier bike and tires...not as big a drop-off as I thought I'd have.
Really? That's a huge drop-off to me.
Earlier this year, I had to send out my rear wheel for service. While without it, I popped on my gravel wheels, with 35mm G-One All-arounds, and continued with my normal rides. I didn't think that the drop-off was anywhere near 85-90%, so I poked through my Strava to look at the same bike, the same route, the same relative effort and the same time of year but with the different wheels. I did find a couple rides within a few watts of each other. Here's the normal wheels -
And the gravel wheels/tires -
All that said, the bike really does feel different with the additional rotating weight - just feels more sluggish in terms of overall handling and particularly when accelerating out of the saddle.