wilson_smyth

Im not ignoring it. reviews have said the almotions are a nice ride and very durable. outside of buying a set and trying them out, that's all i have to go on.
Im also ok with sacrificing a bit of comfort in the interest of durability, i.e. not fixing a puncture on the way home from work and being late collecting the kids from creche.

The balance of speed, durability and agility is a tough one to crack.
The G-ones dont rate well on rolling resistance, but are reasonably durable and agile in acceleration.
The almotions rate well on rolling resistance and durability at the cost of some agility.
They're both almost the same weight.

im weighing up the tradeoffs.

WhyFi

This is the first time that you've mentioned durability or puncture resistance. You mentioned comfort in the OP, have raised weight as a concern and keep harping on about acceleration. You need to decide on your priorities.

Also, when looking at reviews, you need to consider that they're going to be relative to their competition within a given category and that you're looking across multiple categories. I have not touched a Marathon, but I'd bet my bottom dollar that they're not going to come close to touching a Pro One in terms of being fast, supple, and grippy at appropriate pressure.

If you really want the best of all worlds, and are responsible and competent enough to deal with occasional maintenance, I'd be looking at road tubeless tires in the 28-32mm range.

wilson_smyth

Thats unfair and rude. I am both responsible and competent enough, i have time limitations that necessitate that i do what i can to avoid punctures, i.e. kids need to be picked up.
Ive been tubeless, overall the experience was slightly negative so im not going down that route again just yet.

The bike is a gravel bike so i wouldnt be going lower than 36-38mm on it anyway.

Thanks for your input.

WhyFi

How is that rude? You've never mentioned a history with tubeless and I'm simply acknowledging that tubeless requires preventative maintenance to be effective. Some people don't want to be bothered with it and, for whatever reason, others aren't capable of dealing it with it - that leads to negative experiences.

It's a gravel bike that's not going to be seeing gravel. Put slicks on it and it's an endurance road bike. Many people buy gravel bikes and an additional wheelset so that they can quickly and easily swap between wide and knobby and slick and fast.

wilson_smyth

To close this off, I've ordered a set of Continental GP 5000 32mm. Coming from a 40mm nobly tire I have no doubt they will be very different, hopefully in a good way and durability wont suffer too much.
Not going tubeless as I've been there before and when it gets messy, it gets very messy, so will stick with tubes and the hit to puncture resistance they bring.

once they're delivered and I've had a few spins on them ill give an update.

Thanks all for the advice and discussion.

guachi

I had to replace my stock tire after I got a gash in it and replaced it with a GP5000. Nice tire except mounting it was extremely difficult.

ClydeClydeson

You won't necessarily go any faster, but you will notice a lot less buzz from the knobs or tread.

As mentioned above, if you want to go noticeably faster you need to get a lightweight tire with supple casing and sidewall and (unfortunately) no flat protective layer.

burnthesheep

That's not entirely true. Only track racing tires really have "no flat protective layer". GP5000's have vectran puncture layer.

sean.hwy

drum roller tests is so flawed.

WhyFi

Oh? Care to elaborate? Some pretty knowledgeable people seem to think that they're not without merit and value -

Kapusta

I have never seen any tests that demonstrate that ranking on roller drums translates reliably to ranking on the road. I have seen many people say that they do, but no evidence. I have also looked at studies supposedly verifying roller drum results, and they do verify certain aspects of the results, but not the rankings of one tire relative to another.

If you know of such a test that has in fact demonstrated this, I would love to look at it.

WhyFi

Why don't you address the guy I quoted? I'm happy to defer to his authority.

sean.hwy

In my case I bought more expensive carbon wheels for my road bike. Then I kick down my my alloy wheels from the road bike to the gravel bike. So nice to have two wheels sets for the gravel bike when you go out of town. one bike with two wheels sets = 2 bikes.

slowpacer

I wanted to try 28mm tires, so recently swapped 35mm panaracer t-serv tires with 28mm continental ultra sport iii because they were cheap. The 28s are easier to pedal, specially off the get go but it comes in expense of giving up some comfort although not by much. The conties are 160gm/each lighter than the t-serves. I also switched to lighter inner tubes. So, overall ended up with 470gm weight reduction (2tires + 2tubes + 1spare tube), so maybe that's the main reason that makes a difference.
I also have a pair of panaracer tour 42mm tires that feel really cushy but compared to the other two, they have lead in them. My next tires will be 32mm wide mostly ridden on paved road.

Kapusta

What is to address? Where are these tests? He is stating something, but I am not seeing any of the data. Most importantly, I don't know what type of tires or roads he is talking about. How does he even test the RR on the road?

Sorry, but I am not taking someones word for this.

Why am I skeptical? My first inclination that something was off was when they gave the Compass Bon Jon Pass (among the fasted tires I have run) a pretty slow score. This made no sense to me and is definitely not my experience. Further, as I looked around to compare to other tires I have owned, I found they gave a very similar scores to the Bon Jon and the Marathon Supreme. I have owed both of these tires, and there is no way in hell they are anywhere close to each other in rolling resistance. The Bon Jon was WAY faster. Night and day difference. Heck they rated the Gatorskin (which I have also owned) only slightly slower, and that is a freaking garden hose compared the Bon Jon Pass.

I think the problem with the roller drum test is that it deforms to tire differently than a flat surface does. Is deforms the casing under in the middle or the tire (under the tread) more sharply than a flat surface does. This means it gives more weight to the flexibility of that part of the tire casing than a flat surface does.

Now, maybe that does not matter for many tires, if they are of similar construction. But what if you have a tire that is especially flexible in the sidewall both rather thick under the tread (Like most compass/RH tires)? I think what is happening is that the thick tread slows it down more on the roller drum than it would on a flat surface (a real road).

So until I see some evidence (not just someone saying it is so) that the roller drum tests are a reliable predictor of rolling resistance on real world surfaces for a wide variety of tire constructions, I am taking them with a big grain of salt. Are the results correlated? I am sure they are, but that can fall apart with individual tires that have unusual characteristics.

asgelle

I can see you've done extensive reading on this subject.

Kapusta

I'll ask yet again as I have been asking for several years: show me the tests that validates roller drum results as an accurate predictor real world rolling resistance across a range of tires.

I am not saying it does not exist, but to date, nobody has pointed to it.

I am still waiting....

asgelle

Have you ever considered the actual data is proprietary and can't be shared, but respected, reliable people are able to talk in generalities about their conclusions?

Cyclist0108

There are data to the contrary.

https://www.renehersecycles.com/test...res-isnt-easy/

Kapusta

Sure, but without knowing what they were testing and under what conditions, it is impossible to know how widely applicable the findings are.

WhyFi

Welp, there's a way of doing this, it's called the Chung Method. It's widely used within high performance road cycling, including professional and Olympic levels. It's worth noting that the fellow that I quoted is named RChung. Do the math.

WhyFi

Kapusta

Fine, then I will ask you again (as I have been asking for years): Show me the tests that demonstrate that drum tests can accurately predict RR in real world road conditions across various types of tires.

Still waiting....

asgelle

It should be simple to infer from the second plot. https://blog.silca.cc/part-4b-rollin...-and-impedance
Though you do need to know that translation from roller data to road doesn't use any information on the tire; only roller geometry and road roughness.

WhyFi

So you don't accept anything that you can't understand and confirm yourself? Time dilation affects satellites in a way that I don't understand and can't confirm with my math skills, but I accept that GPS satellites need to compensate for this so that I can use my phone to reliably locate the nearest Starbucks. Are you telling me to throw out the baby with the bathwater?