Why so much hate for Gatorskins?
#51
Senior Member
Not very much. It takes not very much power to increase your speed by 1 mph at any of those given speeds. Of course, the relationship you are implying is not so simple. As I already explained elsewhere, there are many factors that affect speed, and power is only one of them. How much power output it takes to travel at a given speed will depend on wind speed, wind direction, rider position, weight of the rider, and so on. The choice of tires actually matters very little compared to those things, which was entirely my point several posts ago.
#52
Senior Member
Not massively different in tire size, both wire bead. The Gatorskin feels a lot stiffer pushing on it with my fingers.
And it's not like I haven't ridden Gatorskins before.
#53
Banned
I've heard you give some enough rope and they'll hang themselves. Looks like it will work with Gatorskins as well! Enjoying it
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#54
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I guess we're at an impasse. It's too bad that there are no independent rolling resistance tests of the Gatorskins or any calculators that could tell you what kind of power is necessary at a given speed with all other factors equal. Too bad, indeed.
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#56
Junior Member
FWIW, I like Gatorskins just fine for my commuter. I don't carry a pump, spare tire, patch kit... I ride in the rain and in the dark. I have no worries about flats.
I have stickier tires on my other road bike - the one I ride faster - but I get lots of flats on that one.
I have stickier tires on my other road bike - the one I ride faster - but I get lots of flats on that one.
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#57
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When we bought our used tandem, it came with 25mm Gatorskins. On our first ride, I couldn't figure out why we had trouble simply maintaining 16 mph on the flat. My stoker puts out about 1/2 my watts, probably less when we were just starting our tandem career, but anyway. I'd heard that Gatorskins were slow, so I changed them out for a set of known fast road tires - I don't remember what. We tried it again, and night and day. The bike accelerated better, was more comfortable, and easily 1 mph faster at the same effort.
Another time, I rode with a very experienced female rider on a Populaire, a metric century sort of mini-brevet for those interested in getting into randonneuring. She was trying out a new set of Gatorskins. Not having flats on long strenuous rides is a good thing. After the ride she took them off and tried to give them away. No takers, so she just put them in the garbage.
I'm riding Conti 4KIIs or 5000 on my single. I can't remember my last flat though I have had one or two in the past couple of years. I do check my tires regularly and inflate before every ride - latex tubes. We are running 28mm 4KIIs on our tandem. Tandems are flat magnets, but we get very few flats and are totally happy with them. I have a pair of 32mm 5000 for when we wear those out in a few months.
Another time, I rode with a very experienced female rider on a Populaire, a metric century sort of mini-brevet for those interested in getting into randonneuring. She was trying out a new set of Gatorskins. Not having flats on long strenuous rides is a good thing. After the ride she took them off and tried to give them away. No takers, so she just put them in the garbage.
I'm riding Conti 4KIIs or 5000 on my single. I can't remember my last flat though I have had one or two in the past couple of years. I do check my tires regularly and inflate before every ride - latex tubes. We are running 28mm 4KIIs on our tandem. Tandems are flat magnets, but we get very few flats and are totally happy with them. I have a pair of 32mm 5000 for when we wear those out in a few months.
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#59
Newbie racer
Not very much. It takes not very much power to increase your speed by 1 mph at any of those given speeds. Of course, the relationship you are implying is not so simple. As I already explained elsewhere, there are many factors that affect speed, and power is only one of them. How much power output it takes to travel at a given speed will depend on wind speed, wind direction, rider position, weight of the rider, and so on. The choice of tires actually matters very little compared to those things, which was entirely my point several posts ago.
Gators versus Vittoria Corsa TL is easily over 20w a pair. Maybe closer to 30w. 30w is 10% of a strong rec rider’s hour power.
It takes a boat load more power to go 33 than 30 than 25. I can do 25 on the TT bike on only about 225. 33mph takes me about 420. Aero power is nonlinear.
You have zero clue. Give up. Some of us race time trial and do the weird experiments you see places like the GCN show screwing up for the sake of entertainment. I own all I need short of the wind tunnel.
Try again home slice.
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#60
GCN is much like Fox News. Once someone quotes them as a source of facts, I ignore everything they say..
Last edited by noodle soup; 09-01-20 at 07:40 PM.
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#61
Senior Member
So now you're just making assumptions and treating them as fact. Nice. You've assumed that the Gatorskins are a "stiff slow" tire, when in fact they are neither slow nor stiff. As plenty of people in this very thread and out in the real world have reported, Gatorskins are actually a fast, supple tire when properly inflated, and they have the added benefit of a more puncture-resistant tread than their in-class competitors. You can't even point to a single, fair test of Gatorskins to prove all the hogwash that people have been bandying about for all these years. Hence, your claims are dubious and show an obvious bias.
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#63
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It takes not very much power to go 31mph instead of 30mph? For a car, I guess.
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#64
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#65
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Believe me I know. However, “not very much power” depends greatly on context. For a car, 30 vs 31mph would probably be hard to discern on gas mileage. On a bike, it’s huge, as a percent of power available.
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#66
Newbie
I'm riding Gatorskin tubulars on Zipp 303s and don't have any issues with them regarding rolling resistance or bad handling. And yeah, my brand new bike cost $7+ so I'm laughing at all you haters who whine about people using them on expensive bikes.
#67
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We’re not whining; we’re laughing too.
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#68
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I didn't even know that Gatorskin Tubulars were a thing. A quick glance at specs makes me think that it's an entirely different tire from Gatorskin clinchers - for example, the tubulars have the black chili compound. The only apparent similarity is that they have extra flat protection. So possibly not a fair comparison.
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#71
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Ben
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#72
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Exactly so. The poster's use of meaningless and obfuscatory terms like, "not very much" is what got me going.
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#73
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I'm riding Conti 4KIIs or 5000 on my single. I can't remember my last flat though I have had one or two in the past couple of years. I do check my tires regularly and inflate before every ride - latex tubes. We are running 28mm 4KIIs on our tandem. Tandems are flat magnets, but we get very few flats and are totally happy with them. I have a pair of 32mm 5000 for when we wear those out in a few months.
#74
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I didn't even know that Gatorskin Tubulars were a thing. A quick glance at specs makes me think that it's an entirely different tire from Gatorskin clinchers - for example, the tubulars have the black chili compound. The only apparent similarity is that they have extra flat protection. So possibly not a fair comparison.
Doubly so because they use butyl inner tubes.
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#75
Senior Member
So now you're just making assumptions and treating them as fact. Nice. You've assumed that the Gatorskins are a "stiff slow" tire, when in fact they are neither slow nor stiff. As plenty of people in this very thread and out in the real world have reported, Gatorskins are actually a fast, supple tire when properly inflated, and they have the added benefit of a more puncture-resistant tread than their in-class competitors. You can't even point to a single, fair test of Gatorskins to prove all the hogwash that people have been bandying about for all these years. Hence, your claims are dubious and show an obvious bias.
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