Why so much hate for Gatorskins?
#226
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I'm with you. A little more spendy, but worth it. Excel has a Conti sale on those every so often, and that's a good time to snag them.
#227
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Never rode anything but 4 Seasons and the 5000 fans are telling me how I'm missing out, as I start to plan replacement tires what would you say are the main differences between the 4 Seasons and the 5000's
#228
Full Member
I've seen so many derogatory comments on these. What are the qualities that they exhibit that are so horrible? Not saying they're good or not, just curious.
I put a 700x28c Gatorskin on rear of my cyclocross bike and a 28 Vittoria Ziffiro IV on the front to turn it into a road bike this year. The Ziffiro was a little more than half the price of the Gator, and has lower rolling resistance in reference charts. My flats are almost always on the rear, so I wanted something tough back there.
I like that the Gator doesn't pick up grit; a quick wipe with a paper towel after a ride to look for cuts or embedded objects and it looks like new. The Ziffiro has enough tread that it picks up enough grit that I have to scrape bad spots with a plastic tool to make sure there's no glass or metal in there.
I realize I'm running inexpensive tires (the Gator is the most expensive tire I've ever bought), but what's so bad about the Gatorskins that they inspire so much hate?
I put a 700x28c Gatorskin on rear of my cyclocross bike and a 28 Vittoria Ziffiro IV on the front to turn it into a road bike this year. The Ziffiro was a little more than half the price of the Gator, and has lower rolling resistance in reference charts. My flats are almost always on the rear, so I wanted something tough back there.
I like that the Gator doesn't pick up grit; a quick wipe with a paper towel after a ride to look for cuts or embedded objects and it looks like new. The Ziffiro has enough tread that it picks up enough grit that I have to scrape bad spots with a plastic tool to make sure there's no glass or metal in there.
I realize I'm running inexpensive tires (the Gator is the most expensive tire I've ever bought), but what's so bad about the Gatorskins that they inspire so much hate?
2. They do not have bead to bead flat protection to if you ride them on a gravel path, you can get large cuts in the sidewall.
3. They ride like a log.
4. They are far too expensive for an everyday tire.
On the other hand,
1. They are all hell and gone cheaper than the Continental 4 seasons which corrects all of these problems .
2. For a normal street rider you will wear them out before you get a flat. The can still pick up a wire now and again and get a flat.
3. They mount EASILY. Most of these tires around today that are tubeless are so difficult to mount that you have little to no chance of doing it along side of the road.
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#229
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I just saw this, and had to add my two cents. Ive rode Gatorskins for many years. First for many years on Fixed bikes in NYC, and currently on my road bike in LA. Yes, their traction in the wet is poor. But so are most thin road bike tires. Why the hell you racing in the rain anyway. Your not Lance so relax.
The point of gatorskins for me, was not to get flats. And OF COURSE there are better performing tires, but let me put it this way. If you have a flat, then Im going faster than you if I dont. End of story.
As far as the 4 seasons, never tried them. But to bash a product solely for the fact that there is a superior product out there doesnt make sense to me. Gatorskins did there job. I NEVER got punctures, only one or two pinch flats. Ride them on a gravel path? Whos riding 23c tires on a gravel path anyway? Like if your looking for a tire that does EVERYTHING better, it doesnt exist. Or it will cost a fortune.
Now, if your an elite level cyclist, thats a different story. You might need to meet a very specific goal. For someone like me, who hits streets all the time, pot holes, glass etc....on pavement, their is no better tire i have ever used.
The point of gatorskins for me, was not to get flats. And OF COURSE there are better performing tires, but let me put it this way. If you have a flat, then Im going faster than you if I dont. End of story.
As far as the 4 seasons, never tried them. But to bash a product solely for the fact that there is a superior product out there doesnt make sense to me. Gatorskins did there job. I NEVER got punctures, only one or two pinch flats. Ride them on a gravel path? Whos riding 23c tires on a gravel path anyway? Like if your looking for a tire that does EVERYTHING better, it doesnt exist. Or it will cost a fortune.
Now, if your an elite level cyclist, thats a different story. You might need to meet a very specific goal. For someone like me, who hits streets all the time, pot holes, glass etc....on pavement, their is no better tire i have ever used.
#230
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#231
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That's the actual end of the story. Doesn't matter if you're elite or not.
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#232
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Still running 23 Gatorskins on one of my bikes (bought many years ago, no dry rot). In more than a decade, can count only a handful of flats, things like nails going through the sidewall riding at night, etc.
That being said, something like Mr. Tuffy light tire liners and Conti GP4000s give better grip and same, if not better, puncture protection than Gatorskins albeit sort of defeat the purpose of running a racing tire.
That being said, something like Mr. Tuffy light tire liners and Conti GP4000s give better grip and same, if not better, puncture protection than Gatorskins albeit sort of defeat the purpose of running a racing tire.
#233
Senior Member
Except you're not. Because that's how slow they are. Comparing good tires to gatorskins, and all else the same, in 100 accumulated miles or so, I will go fast enough to get a flat, change the tire, and get going again before you'd catch up and pass.
That's the actual end of the story. Doesn't matter if you're elite or not.
That's the actual end of the story. Doesn't matter if you're elite or not.
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#235
Senior Member
Yeah what is science. A bunch of malarkey anyway. Pfffft.
Oh and lets not discount the fact you have to pack, carry and pay for all the parts you would need to replace your tire/tube on the road. So lets see how your crazy little thing called "science" adds the weight, cost and comfort into your equation.
Then Again, whats science, right?
Oh and lets not discount the fact you have to pack, carry and pay for all the parts you would need to replace your tire/tube on the road. So lets see how your crazy little thing called "science" adds the weight, cost and comfort into your equation.
Then Again, whats science, right?
#236
Senior Member
That's making a lot of assumptions. It certainly can be true, but it depends on the ride in question (for example if the ride is very short) and what the tires are being compared with.
Since you have a lot of confidence on this matter, show us your math. Then we can have a discussion over the relevant details.
Since you have a lot of confidence on this matter, show us your math. Then we can have a discussion over the relevant details.
#237
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I know English isn't a first language for many here, but maybe take some time to learn the difference between your and you're.
#239
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That's making a lot of assumptions. It certainly can be true, but it depends on the ride in question (for example if the ride is very short) and what the tires are being compared with.
Since you have a lot of confidence on this matter, show us your math. Then we can have a discussion over the relevant details.
Since you have a lot of confidence on this matter, show us your math. Then we can have a discussion over the relevant details.
#242
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Yeah what is science. A bunch of malarkey anyway. Pfffft.
Oh and lets not discount the fact you have to pack, carry and pay for all the parts you would need to replace your tire/tube on the road. So lets see how your crazy little thing called "science" adds the weight, cost and comfort into your equation.
Then Again, whats science, right?
Oh and lets not discount the fact you have to pack, carry and pay for all the parts you would need to replace your tire/tube on the road. So lets see how your crazy little thing called "science" adds the weight, cost and comfort into your equation.
Then Again, whats science, right?
I"m tall and light. Not a good combo for tire traction. I don't like crashing. So paying more for grippier tires and spending more time on the side if the road is, for me, far better than a skid and crash on wet leaves, a little oil or sand or whatever.
Science? Intact bodies go a lot faster!
Oh, my tires are Paselas for city riding - not great traction but decent and Vittoria G+ or G2.0. As a bonus, both have very nice suppple sidewalls and very decent rides for the price.
Ben
#243
Senior Member
If you want a specific study that gets into bicycle performance, "Validation of a Mathematical Model for Road Cycling Power" (Martin, 1998) is a good place to start. This paper basically assembles a theoretical model for performance, and does some on-bicycle power tests, showing that the model predicts the measured power fairly well if reasonable parameters are provided for the bike+rider system.
If I simplify the model a little (combining static and rotating drag coefficients and assuming that the wind velocity is 0), it assumes that force from aerodynamic drag can be modeled as:
.5 * (air density) * CdA * (v^2)
CdA is the aerodynamic drag coefficient of the bike+rider multiplied by the frontal area of the bike+rider. It's basically a number describing the dragginess of the aerodynamic profile. The air density at sea level tends to be around 1.225 kilograms per cubic meter.
To get the power required to overcome that force, we can just multiply the formula by velocity, so:
.5 * (air density) * CdA * (v^3)
As an example, a typical road cyclist might have a CdA somewhere in the ballpark of .32. If they're riding along at 20mph (8.94m/s) on level ground in calm conditions on a mellow day at sea level, we can predict their power loss due to air drag as:
.5 * 1.225 * .32 * (8.94^3) = 140 watts
Force from rolling resistance is assumed to be constant with respect to velocity, but linearly proportional to the load on the tires. So:
9.8 * (mass of the bike+rider system) * Crr
Crr in this case is the "coefficient of rolling resistance", which depends on the tire setup (such as what tires and how they're inflated, although things like rim width and choice of inner tube also play a role). Similar to before, we can multiply by velocity to get the power required to overcome the force:
9.8 * (mass of the bike+rider system) * Crr * v
So for example, if we have an 80kg bike+rider going 20mph (8.94m/s) on tires with a Crr of .004, we get:
9.8 * 80 * .004 * 8.94 = 28 watts
Rolling resistance is a bit more squirrely than air drag. Notably, how many physical phenomena are actually reasonable to encompass under "crr" and the degree to which they're invariant with respect to speed is a little bit fuzzy. But as the paper demonstrates, it's still a *good enough* approximation to do useful things with the model.
Crr is traditionally measured by loading a tire against a surface (usually a steel drum), and observing how much power is required to rotate the tire against that surface at a given speed. The Crr can be inferred from this. Drums aren't roads (and so Crr needs to be adjusted for the shape of the road surface to get precise results), and this also doesn't account for effects relating to the tire's performance as suspension on a given surface, but it's still a useful and repeatedly start for predicting which tires are going to perform better than others, and by approximately how much.
If we go by data measured from bicyclerollingresistance, 25mm Gatorskins have a Crr of .00659 at 80PSI, and 25mm GP5000s have a Crr of .00363 at 80PSI.
Let's go back to the examples earlier, with the 80kg cyclist with a CdA of .32 doing 20mph at 168W. If we swap his tires out to those GP5000s, that total drops to 165W. If we then swap in the Crr for the Gatorskins, how fast will he be going at 165W? It turns out to be about 19.06mph, so nearly 1mph slower.
Now, this is admittedly a very approximate example. There are a few factors I didn't account for, and obviously the Crr values are an extremely rough guess. Consider, though, that we've got two posts in this thread that corroborate that the difference is of this magnitude if not larger.
Anyway, if we assume a difference of around 5% for a 20mph roadie, and compare this to rubik's example of a century ride? That's a 5-hour ride, so 5% would add 15 minutes, which is usually plenty of time to fix a flat.
I don't think that oleg's point about the repair kit makes a very bit dent on this judgement. Partly because I haven't known Gatorskins to be anywhere near tough enough to justify not bringing a repair kit in a situation where you would for a racing tire, and partly because repair kits just aren't that big or heavy. My main pump is 88g; add a tube and tire levers (and perhaps a Park GP-2 for good measure) and I can still be under 200g. Which is peanuts. Like, it takes about 40 seconds for a mere 150W power source to lift a 200g mass by ten thousand feet.
If I simplify the model a little (combining static and rotating drag coefficients and assuming that the wind velocity is 0), it assumes that force from aerodynamic drag can be modeled as:
.5 * (air density) * CdA * (v^2)
CdA is the aerodynamic drag coefficient of the bike+rider multiplied by the frontal area of the bike+rider. It's basically a number describing the dragginess of the aerodynamic profile. The air density at sea level tends to be around 1.225 kilograms per cubic meter.
To get the power required to overcome that force, we can just multiply the formula by velocity, so:
.5 * (air density) * CdA * (v^3)
As an example, a typical road cyclist might have a CdA somewhere in the ballpark of .32. If they're riding along at 20mph (8.94m/s) on level ground in calm conditions on a mellow day at sea level, we can predict their power loss due to air drag as:
.5 * 1.225 * .32 * (8.94^3) = 140 watts
Force from rolling resistance is assumed to be constant with respect to velocity, but linearly proportional to the load on the tires. So:
9.8 * (mass of the bike+rider system) * Crr
Crr in this case is the "coefficient of rolling resistance", which depends on the tire setup (such as what tires and how they're inflated, although things like rim width and choice of inner tube also play a role). Similar to before, we can multiply by velocity to get the power required to overcome the force:
9.8 * (mass of the bike+rider system) * Crr * v
So for example, if we have an 80kg bike+rider going 20mph (8.94m/s) on tires with a Crr of .004, we get:
9.8 * 80 * .004 * 8.94 = 28 watts
Rolling resistance is a bit more squirrely than air drag. Notably, how many physical phenomena are actually reasonable to encompass under "crr" and the degree to which they're invariant with respect to speed is a little bit fuzzy. But as the paper demonstrates, it's still a *good enough* approximation to do useful things with the model.
Crr is traditionally measured by loading a tire against a surface (usually a steel drum), and observing how much power is required to rotate the tire against that surface at a given speed. The Crr can be inferred from this. Drums aren't roads (and so Crr needs to be adjusted for the shape of the road surface to get precise results), and this also doesn't account for effects relating to the tire's performance as suspension on a given surface, but it's still a useful and repeatedly start for predicting which tires are going to perform better than others, and by approximately how much.
If we go by data measured from bicyclerollingresistance, 25mm Gatorskins have a Crr of .00659 at 80PSI, and 25mm GP5000s have a Crr of .00363 at 80PSI.
Let's go back to the examples earlier, with the 80kg cyclist with a CdA of .32 doing 20mph at 168W. If we swap his tires out to those GP5000s, that total drops to 165W. If we then swap in the Crr for the Gatorskins, how fast will he be going at 165W? It turns out to be about 19.06mph, so nearly 1mph slower.
Now, this is admittedly a very approximate example. There are a few factors I didn't account for, and obviously the Crr values are an extremely rough guess. Consider, though, that we've got two posts in this thread that corroborate that the difference is of this magnitude if not larger.
Anyway, if we assume a difference of around 5% for a 20mph roadie, and compare this to rubik's example of a century ride? That's a 5-hour ride, so 5% would add 15 minutes, which is usually plenty of time to fix a flat.
I don't think that oleg's point about the repair kit makes a very bit dent on this judgement. Partly because I haven't known Gatorskins to be anywhere near tough enough to justify not bringing a repair kit in a situation where you would for a racing tire, and partly because repair kits just aren't that big or heavy. My main pump is 88g; add a tube and tire levers (and perhaps a Park GP-2 for good measure) and I can still be under 200g. Which is peanuts. Like, it takes about 40 seconds for a mere 150W power source to lift a 200g mass by ten thousand feet.
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#244
Senior Member
I rode gatorskins for years. Then I tried something else, and gave away the last couple new gatorskins I had. It's not that they are bad tires, but I've enjoyed GP4000 and Michelin Pro4 Endurance tires more...the road feel is shockingly different.
If my primary concern was flat resistance I'd go back to gatorskins or sometihng even tougher.
If my primary concern was flat resistance I'd go back to gatorskins or sometihng even tougher.
#245
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Yeah what is science. A bunch of malarkey anyway. Pfffft.
Oh and lets not discount the fact you have to pack, carry and pay for all the parts you would need to replace your tire/tube on the road. So lets see how your crazy little thing called "science" adds the weight, cost and comfort into your equation.
Then Again, whats science, right?
Oh and lets not discount the fact you have to pack, carry and pay for all the parts you would need to replace your tire/tube on the road. So lets see how your crazy little thing called "science" adds the weight, cost and comfort into your equation.
Then Again, whats science, right?
That's your attempt at doubling down on being wrong?
A tube in my bag is about 100 grams. Comfort doesn't factor into the equation. Not sure why you think there's a cost factor, either. There will be cost regardless of tire choice.
So yeah, you're still wrong. Very.
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#247
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You don't need a study. A calculator can show the impact of various factors, including rolling resistance.
Cycling Physics Calculator
Cycling Physics Calculator
#248
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If we go by data measured from bicyclerollingresistance, 25mm Gatorskins have a Crr of .00659 at 80PSI, and 25mm GP5000s have a Crr of .00363 at 80PSI.
Let's go back to the examples earlier, with the 80kg cyclist with a CdA of .32 doing 20mph at 168W. If we swap his tires out to those GP5000s, that total drops to 165W. If we then swap in the Crr for the Gatorskins, how fast will he be going at 165W? It turns out to be about 19.06mph, so nearly 1mph slower.
Plugging in this data for a 75 kg rider doing 100 miles at an average 200 watts using the above two tires with a CdA of 0.35
The time difference in completing that 100 miles is....
11 minutes and 10 seconds.
For 50 miles:
5 minutes and 35 seconds.
Maybe Oleg can't change his tire in 5 minutes and 35 seconds and that's the cause of his consternation?
Last edited by rubiksoval; 09-18-20 at 09:15 AM.
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#249
Senior Member
Haha this is funny. Anyway, you folks took my words out of context, which usually happens on forums. My entire post admitted that these are not the best tires. That people might have different goals. Duh. But for puncture resistance, in my decade use of Gatorskins, i found them flawless for my needs. In a 100 mile race? um I aint always doing 100 miles. People run out on their bike for a quick 20 miler, and get a flat (which literally happened 2 days ago to someone in the pack i was riding with). And my reply about science was tongue in cheek to rubiksoval, who obviously takes talking to complete strangers WAAAy to seriously. Could have just disagreed, but no he had try to insult me. Really wish we lived next to each other so I could smoke your ass. Then all your talking behind a monitor wont mean jack. Plugging in numbers and all your data malarkey. Go and freaking ride, on a real road, with real people, then I will see how you perform.
#250
Senior Member
If Newton beat Einstein in a bike race would that mean relativistic physics was wrong?
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