Continental Terra Speed 700Cx40 Tires
 

Has anyone been riding the Conti Terra Speed 700Cx40 Tires? The online reviews are very good except for the durability. Wondering if anyone here has real-life use experience you can comment on?

Hate to be that guy, but did you search here?

Mine probably lasted 600 miles in the rear. Can't say it's noticeably faster, but other than wear it was good. There are a lot of alternatives if you aren't mesmerised by numbers. I've used Ramblers, Original G-one allround, GK-SS. other than wear, they are pretty similar. In dry weather I use 36mm GP5000, and that is a crazy fast tire.

700x36 GP5000? link please.

typo probably meant 32mm

He uses 32mm GP5k on 29mm internal rims and they plump up to 36mm.

I've had the Terra Speed for over 2000 miles. Predominantly on gravel rail trails. I looked at them a couple weeks ago and see no reason not to keep rolling them.

yah, I'm pushing the boundaries, but I put the 32mm version on a 29 internal rim, and it measures a bit over 36mm. Its all I ride now in summer/fall (unless its wet and/or rough). It is a lot faster than all my other gravel tires - yet I can handle our summer gravel with ease. It's the best of both worlds and just amazing. Doing 25-30mph in a pace line on the crap asphalt we have around here at 35-40psi - these tires are a lot faster than the guys running 25mm versions of the same tire. Yet, on my way home I can just blast down any gravel road I want with no worries.

I couldn't be happier.

I suspect the rolling surface and the power output play a huge role in tire wear.

600 miles on mixed hard surfaces (for me, broken chip seal and hard pack dirt) at 200-1000 watts kills the tread life. At 0 watts, they still look fine on the same surfaces. I suspect that running them on softer gravel surfaces would help a lot too.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...9f76c5d41.jpeg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d167283cb.jpeg
have 700x35 Terra Speed on one bike (pictured)

they appear to run a bit 'small' - 700x35 might be closer to 700x33 *** (?) - so the 700x40 might be around 700x38 (?)

( *** installed on Maddux DC 3.0 hybrid rim with tubes )

The 700x35 Terra Speed (folding, black wall) weighs around 365 g ; the tread part of the tire is not as thick as I hoped - but so far so good

The tire rolls very well on hard surfaces - better than I anticipated given the low-profile knobs

did some dirt road and light trail riding - tire performed fairly well ... 700x40 would prob be better than the 700x35 for these applications

I loved them, but man they burned through the tread in 600 miles for me. mostly trails, some road.

As mentioned, great tires, but won't last long, that's the tradeoff for a fast gravel tire. I get about 5-600 miles out of a set, but I'm 185lbs and put down pretty good power.

Just put a set on, I can mount them by hand, and they inflate with a floor pump (don't even have to partially seat the bead, they just pump right up), probably the easiest tubeless tires I've mounted.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...bf13ee8887.jpg

Had a set, one tire separated in the middle of the tread at only 400 mi or so. Only tires that have done that to me.

How does power output accelerate tire wear? Sincere question, as I've never considered this before. It seems to me that greater power output means rolling faster, and I don't see how that (alone) accelerates wear. It's not as if anyone's doing burnouts on a bicycle.

Sounds like those are good tires. Do they come in 650bx40?

More power and speed = more friction, which makes them wear faster. Just like driving a car like grandma versus driving it hard all the time. I was doing 28-30mph in a group ride last week on them (pavement), that's gonna add some wear compared to just riding around easy.

I'm not sure your analogy holds up. Driving a car aggressively (burnouts, drifting around corners) will obviously wear out tires faster, but riding a road bike faster involves no such additional tire wear. And while higher-speed driving creates more heat and friction on auto tires, I'm not convinced that cycling speeds are anywhere near high enough to create such an effect.

Does my ability to explain make it more or less real? Or do real life examples help more?

On the terraspeed,
0 watts input over 1000 miles = zero wear.
0-1000 watts input, means tire is worn out after ~600 miles.

Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know?

Want more:
I get 1/2 the tread life out of my tandem (rear), with 2x power output.
I get 1/2 the tread life out of my light powered commuter ebike, with 2x power output.

If I just leave the tire on the front alone, I get dry rot before I get tread wear.

How do you ride a tire for 1000 miles at zero watts?


You are ignoring the other obvious differences between tandems and singles and between ebikes and acoustic bikes. And you still have given no reason why more power would accelerate tire wear. (Note that a mere assertion is not a theory.)

Rear wheels propel the bike forward by friction between the tire and ground. Just because you don't feel your rear tire slipping on the ground doesn't mean that the rubber isn't being scraped away by drive forces. That's why rear tires tend to square off and wear out faster than fronts, and lots of climbing accelerates the effect. Seems reasonable to intuit that applying more power (especially suddenly rather than smoothly) would lead to quicker wear.

The more rapid wear on a rear tire is due to the fact that it supports most of the total system mass. And when climbing, even more weight is shifted to the rear wheel. By the same token, chas58 's claim that the rear tire on his tandem wears twice as fast due to 2x power is likely incorrect; it wears faster because it is carrying much more weight.

Nah, weight balance isn't enough to explain why the tires wear differently. You could front-load a bike to make the weight balance 50/50 and the rear tire will still square off (which fronts don't do, or at least never have for me) and wear out faster.

Unless you've actually done that, you're just speculating.

There is actual logic behind my argument, since it is indisputable that the rear tire supports well over 50% of the system weight; your (and chas58 's) argument is pure speculation, since neither of you have offered any evidence that power output causes tire wear. (And logic works against your argument, since cycling -- aside from a few track disciplines and the odd TT launch -- doesn't generally involve rapid starts. Even most road races start rather sedately, in my experience, and power is then applied once the wheels are already rolling at a good pace.)

I reckon that rear tires might wear a bit faster due to deceleration, since the rearward weight bias (and many riders' tendency to overuse the rear brake) might cause more skids and near-skids.

If tire wear were strictly due to load, it should be in proportion to the load. A road bike is usually, what, 40% in front and 60% in rear? Have you ever worn through the tread of a tire that stayed on the front its whole life?

A rear tire doesn't need to be slipping/skidding for the rubber to wear off due to abrasion, I'm confident that it happens to some extent whenever you apply additional power to accelerate. A front tire, on the other hand, just rolls on the ground unless you're in the process of crashing...

Funny man. I'll take sincere questions, but if you are just here to troll and argue, I'm out... CYA,,,

True. The torque to the rear tire does apply some deformation and extra wear - most evident on treaded tires, but happens to all of them. I've done some fairly fast riding on mountain bike tires on pavement, and the tread squirm is very evident.

The weigh argument is less relevant. With my tandem, I still get no wear on the front, in spite of the extra load. My ebike is the basically the same weight as my road bike, just with 2x the power output. And yeah, the weigh balance of my road bike is more like 45/55, so weight isn't the overwhelming factor.