6door74

I'm in need of some new tires for a Specialized Tarmac I just acquired. I'm not set on a specific brand yet, but I do want them to have colored sidewalls because that's just what I like. Let's see your road bikes with color sidewalls!

Initially I thought red but now I'm unsure and I just want to see a bunch of examples. A Google images search only shows the tires but not really any bikes sporting them. Gumwall and whitewall pics are welcome as well.

Thanks!

alcjphil

My Look 481SL with red wall tires

6door74

I bought a Scattante last year with those same Hutchison tires in blue.

veganbikes

I know I was not in the big ring. Tan is the sidewall color to go for. They really class up the joint but more importantly the tires ride really well for skinny tires. I like a nice supple sidewall

6door74

I have a set on my State Americana bike

veganbikes

Show us the drive side!

6door74

It came as a 1x8 but when I changed these wheels, it has only 7 gears. I'll be making some changes to it eventually.

pmf

As with shorts, its hard to beat plain black tires. I do like the retro tan Vittoria Corsas on some of my steel bikes. If you hit it right, a colored sidewall looks really nice. If it doesn't quite match, it looks awful. Same with bar tape.

Do you need a premium membership to post pics here?

6door74

You're right about that, but black is blah to me. Whatever tire I choose will hopefully be found on Amazon for easy returnability if I don't like them.

You need 10 posts before you can attach a pic. I found a few threads to post on but then ran into a 5 posts per day limit. So i had to wait a few extra days. LoL

seypat

I'd go with the red in the 2nd post, or black.

veganbikes

Vittoria Corsa tires are a throughly modern tire with some aesthetics that give it a retro vibe. Just so people don't think they are some vintage tire the Graphene compounds work wonders I have had them on my Di2 road bike and they are fantastic especially in the wet they really grip nicely.

No premium membership required just need to make 10 posts in active threads super easy. The idea is to help prevent spammers and scammers and such. Plus it hopefully gets people involved in the forums rather than just using us as google or alta vista or similar search engine.

pmf

I never meant to imply that Vitoria Corsa tires are old technology/material. They just are available in that retro looking brown gum wall. Same thing as the black version. I like them better than the high end Conti and Michelin tires. First tire I ever rode on and felt a big difference.

Chuck M 

OP... Sorry for the threadjack
I got the Continental GP5Ks in tan wall for that retro vibe. And while I like them pretty well, just looking at the Vittoria Corsas I think they may be a better tire. Are they an actual skin-wall tire or just made to look that way? And have you ridden the GP5Ks also to be able to give me a comparison?

And to end the threadjack, here is a photo of the GP5Ks on my trek for the OP's color reference. When new, they were quite tan, now they are more brown. I think the tan gave them more pop, but the color after darkening isn't too terrible either.

veganbikes

The Corsa tire is a Cotton/Poly blend of some sort, they call it Corespun K. Like people have said it is easy to get dirty like most open tubular tires. However the ride is just fantastic I am a big person and haven't had any real puncture issues in using them (maybe one or two flats that I can recall in many years of using them). Like I said rain was fantastic, I was riding down a two lane almost highway for a bit in absolute pouring rain that I could barely see in front of me but I didn't feel like I was sliding or loosing grip at all, I felt really planted which was a good feeling because that rain was terrifying on that road. I had wished for some disc brakes on that descent (not that my rim brakes are bad but it was real wet and any extra braking I could have gotten would have been fantastic but I don't often ride in those conditions.

In terms of Continental I have used the Grand Prix classics and they were a fine tire certainly looked really good and performed like a Continental tire should but nothing blew me out of the water and I have done a little riding on the 5Ks but not enough to really comment too much. Conti makes great tires good puncture protection and a decent enough ride quality but they don't really do much in the soft supple open tubular world that I have used but I do like their tires when I want a long lasting low flat tire chance tire.

'02 nrs

https://www.bicyclebuys.com/hutchins...rey/0603204DGY

Chuck M 

I noticed in the photos that they were grooved which made me think they would be better in the rain than the slicks I've been riding. And I do love disks in the rain.

NoWhammies

I would put some tyres on my bike that came in different colours. However I have yet to find any tubeless tyres that come in any colour beside tan.

6door74

Went ahead and ordered these Vittoria Rubino Pro 2.0. The yellow is bold but I like bold. I think it will look good together. I'll post pics when I get them. They also come in red, blue, white, and black.

rsbob 

Back in the 80s when most higher end tires had tan sidewalls, I always liked mine looking clean, and not smudged and dirty looking after a couple of thousand miles. So just like when I used to clean the white wall tires on my mom’s 67 Cougar, I got out the Comet and a scrub brush. It worked wonderfully and made the sidewalls look like new. So I did it a few more times when they started looking tatty.

The night before my one day ride from Seattle to Portland, I thoroughly serviced the bike but used the same tires which probably had over 3000 miles on them. Of course I got out the Comet and scrub brush. At about mile 120, one of the sidewalls blew out. Inspecting it, it wasn’t due to a cut, but the fabric had been so weakened by the Comet it just fell apart. I was able to boot the tire with a dollar bill and finish the ride, but learned never to clean their replacements.

Herzlos

My understanding is that bike tires are too narrow for grooves to make any difference for water on the road, and the companies that provide grooves do it for aesthetic/confidence reasons, usually not covering the centre treat. For gravel, mud, etc, then tread will get you more grip though.

delbiker1 

I absolutely belief this is false. IME, treaded tires do make a big difference on wet pavement. Of course, brand and type of tire, how and what they are made from, what surface they are being ridden on, are all big factors. In regards, to the actual question of the post, just my opinion, not a fan of colors on tires other than black, gum, or variations of brown, maybe grey. Black never looks wrong. In transparency, I am badly color blind, ergo, I do not see color matches as others see them. I want to see the bike first, not the tires.

Troul 

if a grey sidewall was available, I'd go with that... or gum?

this is how it was basically explained to me by a conti rep many years ago. A MTB tire (likely applied to gravel) is generally much wider than a road tire, therefore, making tread groves more functional than just for an appealing design often used for marketing elsewhere. also we talked about tread depth; I dont 100% remember the details as to why thickness of the contact patch differed between road & MTB, but a road tire's contact surface is often thinner for assorted beneficial rider's experience. Although, this was before tubeless were a thing mainstream [pre2003].
I would personally sacrifice weight (gain) for more material thickness if that meant a substantial amount of durability & longevity was achieved, but that doesn't seem feasible with road tires (up to 700cx30). Maybe an engineer on here with bicycle tire knowledge can expand on this area?

kooby

Off-road tires with big lugs and deep grooves are designed to sink in to the soil and "push" against the soil (shear forces) in addition to friction with the ground. In contrast to slick road tires that are relying almost entirely on friction between the tire and ground. Treads in slick and off-road tires help with traction in the wet by evacuation water from contact area of the tire by simply giving the water a place to flow.

W/ respect to contact patch: friction does not depend on surface area (this is true), but when you are riding off-road, the wider contact patch (larger contact area) is better because you are applying forces to a larger area and are less likely to "deform" the soil under the tire (slip). When you are riding on-road, asphalt is so much stronger than loose soil that you don't need to worry about it deforming under your tires, so we can have nice, efficient skinny tires (until you run into some sand or gravel on the road)

Hope that clarifies a little bit

veganbikes

Yes they are grooved but I also have a feeling the graphene helps as well but I don't know. I just know they are great.

Discs would have helped then but I survived and I love the look and the weight of my eeBrakes so I think they are a keeper for now.

Jax Rhapsody

Shades matching is just trivial to me.