Originally Posted by
Chuckles1
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?
A lot of the hate comes from a few years ago when people were still over-inflating their tires. If you over-inflate the Gatorskins, you're gonna have a bad time. But if you keep them inflated to less than max pressure, they actually ride really well and handle great. The rolling resistance is not really different enough that anyone with even a beginner's leg strength would be able to tell, but that doesn't stop people from claiming the tires are "slow". Some people are just silly and like to complain about the tiniest, most imperceptible things.