Panaracer gravel kings....run small
 

just replaced a set of gp5000 28mm (close to worn out, and rear dead due to slice all the way trough and accross) with panracer gravel kings 28mm on mavic open pro rims

the GKs measure only 26 wide and 26 high....at full max inflation....bit surprised. the gp5000 were solid 28 wide and high if not a bit more

havn't been able to compare the ride yet so we shall see

p.s for those asking why this swap.....I had a set of panaracers available to figured why not, especially as i am putting bucks to a to be revealed project bike

That’s very interesting. The 26mm GK’s I have measure 26mm when mounted, on two different brands of rim.

Perhaps Panaracer expects "gravel" tires to be mounted to modern wider rims, so that might explain why they come up narrow on older-style rims.

I got the tires a year apart, so can probably rule out mis lableing :) I thought I was crazy just looking but got out the mm ruler and verified

it is possible the GK's will measure another mil or two wider after some time ... couple weeks ... ? ... couple months

one pair of 32mm GK SS measured at 31mm or so - later appeared to be close to 32 mm

one pair of 35mm GK SS measured at 36mm just after install

???

I've had a couple 28mm GK slick sets run 26.7mm on HP Son Archetype rims. They're (28s at least) are known to run a little small.

The two sets of 28 GK’s (brown wall slicks) I have measured 26 mm.

BTW Squirt, I seem to recall you were shopping for replacement GP5000. Give Veloflex.Corsa/ Master 28’s or, if you want more puncture resistance, Vittoria Open Pave 27’s a try. Gravel Kings are nice for the money but still a couple notches below these for ride quality and our bikes deserve the best don’t they?

Gk's I have mounted now: 26mm on 15mm rims=26.9, 28mm on 19.8mm rims=28.7, 32mm on 18mm rims=32.5. None of them are at max psi but 10-15 psi under, and all are with latex tubes. The 32 mm are TLC. The 28 and 32 are on tubeless compatible wheels. They all have a very nice ride quality, but the 28's on the 19.8 rims are outstanding. Those wheels are heavy, almost 2000 grams. I have a set of Vittoria Rubino Pro graphene, 30mm, on a set of Zonda's, and they ride as well as the 28 GK's, They measure at 30.8mm.

BTW, the Vittoria Open Pave are one of my favorite road tires. I looked at them on CRC a couple of days ago, jumped from $26 to $36 usd. Still a pretty good price for a really good tire. They do take some abuse and give a lot of miles, IME.

true that, and I have pretty much said the best tires are the biggest performance upgrade you can make. That said I figured I would try these, as i had the for a Cino bike

I do have have a nice set of gp5000 cream walls in 28mm but they are reserved for a future build along with some 29 mm FMB Cobblestone tubular (have to have 2 wheelsets)
the future build will be a very nice build (which also means when the build is done the 85 miyata will be on the block)

I love the Open Paves. Have they changed the casing/cut resistance. The OPs of a few years ago cut easily. I carried more bills when I rode them and sometim0es used quite a few to get home. I switched to the Corsa G+ and am just riding my last OPs to clean them out. These last three don't want to die. I don't know if Vittoria started doing something different or these tire just know that when they die, their done.

I started using them a couple years ago and have had no problem with cuts that caused flats, or to have to use a boot in the tire. I have noticed some small surface cuts, like from glass shards, but no worse than other tires. I see the same thing with GK's. However, I ride on mostly pavement that is in good condition. I do not get flats very often. I also probably change tires a bit before they actually need to be replaced. IMO, that helps. I have never kept track of what the actual mileage is that I get from tires. From June of 2020 to Christmas day of 2021, I put in 9,000 miles with not one flat. I would guess at least 7,000 of those miles were on Open Paves. I got a flat tire on that Christmas morning, but that was with a pretty worn Zaffiro Pro.

32mm measures 32.5mm on 17.5 internal rims.
28mm measures 27mm and 28.5mm, depending on the rim.

This is the same story as most every other tire width complaint thread.

32mm on CR18 rims measures 31mm at 65psi