Buyer's guide

how to choose your road tires

All the informations and advice to choose the right tires for road cycling.

Buyer's guide

how to choose your road tires

All the informations and advice to choose the right tires for road cycling.

ROAD TIRES TREAD RANGE

OUR CASING

GRIPTON ADVANTAGE

Our proprietary Gripton compound achieves some lofty goals – such as being a key component of the fastest tires in the world. Utilizing mostly synthetic rubber reinforced with silicon dioxide, Gripton experiences less hysteresis loss than natural rubber. The compounds in Gripton tires are not as dense as carbon black compounds, and experience less internal friction and resultant temperature build up when deformed. Silica is also porous, and as a result absorbs less energy than carbon black compounds. Therefore, Gripton dissipates less energy than other compounds, and tires using Gripton run cooler, more smoothly, more efficiently. Most importantly though, they roll faster. Faster than anything else. Fast enough to win World Championships.

TUBELESS READY TECHNOLOGY - RAPIDAIR

RAPIDAIR tubeless ready tire technology is changing the world, turning the page on the century-long chapter of tubulars in professional racing. Clinchers have traditionally been made with a single casing ply that overlaps under the tread, massing material where it hurts rolling resistance and ride quality. Instead, for the Rapidair construction we use two thin plies that overlap at the side wall. It makes a tire that rolls 10% faster and grips better than our race tubulars, while mounting and holding air more consistently.

TURBO COTTON TECHNOLOGY

The Turbo Cotton is built from a handbrushed 320tpi cotton casing – individual fibers are extremely thin and flexible, and the brushed-on latex impregnation is extremely elastic, creating a casing that adapts effortlessly to the road surface. For the smoothest ride.

article-image

WHY ARE WIDER TIRES FASTER ?

Back in 2011 our claim that “wider is faster” sounded bold. Specialized introduced 24mm and 26mm wide Turbo Tubular tires to the pro peloton when all other teams where still running on 22mm wide tires.

Today 26mm wide casings are the new normal and even 28mm wide tires – typically reserved for the gnarly spring races – are preferred by some riders throughout the season. A wide tire can be run at lower pressure than a narrow tire. This in turn allows that tire to conform to road surface irregularities. That means the tire is able to roll more smoothly over that surface, with greater traction and control. Ultimately, this means a wider tire will be able to roll FASTER over that surface, since it is not losing energy reacting to and being deflected by surface irregularities. This applies for all surfaces, but the rougher the road the faster the wider tire will be compared to its narrower predecessor.

Greater tire volume changes the shape of a tire’s contact patch, rendering it shorter and wider for a given air pressure. This has also been proven to roll faster. Additionally, for a given pressure, a larger volume tire will deform \(bulge\) less at its contact patch when rolling or cornering. Deformation is energy lost, pure and simple. So, not only will a larger tire roll more comfortably over a given surface, it will be deforming less as it rolls. It will be rolling SMOOTHER and FASTER than a narrower tire. Period.