Cycling UK Forum

Tread Carefully Some assume that tyres with no tread are going to offer no grip on the road or in wet weather. The fact is that 'slick' treads on bikes actually present more surface area on smooth surfaces, which means more grip. Even in the wet a smoother tread will mean more grip on the road than a deep tread or knobbles. Cars need tread, or grooves in the tyre to prevent them hydroplaning above a certain speed (hydroplaning is where the tyre can't shed the water between it and the surface, effectively leaving contact with the ground) however you'd have to be riding at around 100mph on average bike tyres for this to begin to happen. The only time where you need a pronounced tread on your tyre is when it needs to bite into a soft surface, such as mud or sand.
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Nearholmer wrote: ↑7 Oct 2023, 7:57pm If I’m seeing that photo rightly, it looks like forestry access road, made from crushed rock fines, so not very muddy, and actually offering pretty good grip, so I’d ride it on the same tyres I leave on all the time: tubeless with small knobbles.

The ones I use are Bontrager GR2, but Panaracer SK, or Marathon G-One Allrounds, and a number of others fall into the same bracket. Schwalbe also do a tyre called G-one Overland, which would probably work too. That sort of tyre seems to be the best compromise for mixed surfaced-unsurfaced riding; perfect for neither, but OK on both.

The GT365 would also cope with ease, and they’re tough beasts, but they are a bit wooden when hard enough to roll easily on hard surfaces (I put them on the bike my son rides, which has to be usable 365, but he doesn’t often go far on). On an e-bike, the wooden-ness might not worry you; you could just run at a lower pressure to avoid it, and let he motor take up the extra work.

None of the above copes well with really sticky or slimey mud, even the GT365 which looks as if it will, but clogs up. For that sort of thing you need big, widely-spaced knobbles, which are then horrible on hard surfaces. I just do the best I can with small knobbles, and when it gets ludicrously sticky I push or carry the bike, and get very muddy feet!

PH wrote: ↑7 Oct 2023, 6:50pm Double Fighters are fine for everything other than deep mud (Or similar, like snow), they might even be fine for short sections of that if you ride with care.

Mike Sales wrote: ↑7 Oct 2023, 7:12pmThe rugosities on a normal tarmac road will deform the tyre rubber and give grip. But tyre knobbles will not deform tarmac.

axel_knutt wrote: ↑9 Oct 2023, 4:08pm
Today's new word: rugosities.

Deformation alone won't provide grip in the wet, grip comes from the hysteresis loss of the rubber (as does the rolling resistance):
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Nearholmer wrote: ↑12 Oct 2023, 9:19pm I’m afraid it’s just nonsense.