Winter Road Tyres

[TrevA]

What are people using nowadays for winter tyres - 23mm and 25mm?

I’ve always used Gatorskins but they are getting quite expensive nowadays, cheapest I can find is around £32. I can only fit 25mm tyres on my winter bike and 23mm on my wife’s winter bike.

[roubaixtuesday]

I use Marathon 25s. I've used Gatorskins before, found them a bit skiddy, though it's highly subjective.

[ken66]

I used Gatorskins once but didn’t like them in wet conditions. For some time I’ve used Continental 4 Season but I consider they’re quite expensive and also I have found that the tread comes away long before the tyre is anywhere near worn

[Steve]

Gatorskins may not be cheap but I seem to get good mileage from them - if you do buy cheap tyres you might find yourself buying more of them.

[ANTONISH]

I use gatorskins in the summer.
They wear well but are not very good in the wet - I use continental 4 seasons in the winter - they don't wear as well but have much better grip.

[AndyK]

I'm currently trying out the Goodyear Eagle Sport, with good results so far. A grip comparable with the excellent "Blakck Chilli" rubber on my Conti Grand Prix GT's, plenty of puncture protection - and much cheaper. In fact it looks like Halfords have the 700x25 size on offer at £15 a pop at the moment. Might be worth a punt. Review of the 28mm size here: https://road.cc/content/review/goodyear ... yre-277809

[Jon in Sweden]

I'm currently trying out the Goodyear Eagle Sport, with good results so far. A grip comparable with the excellent "Blakck Chilli" rubber on my Conti Grand Prix GT's, plenty of puncture protection - and much cheaper. In fact it looks like Halfords have the 700x25 size on offer at £15 a pop at the moment. Might be worth a punt. Review of the 28mm size here: https://road.cc/content/review/goodyear ... yre-277809

I found the Eagle Sports to be very good (really rather fast, but quite a brittle ride quality) but they measure very small for their size. I have 25s and they're smaller than a normal 23.

[tim-b]

These... https://www.planetx.co.uk/products/jack ... lding-tyre
Made by Panaracer for Rivendell, unfortunately 25 is the narrowest option

I found Gators slippery on wet cast iron covers, wet white lines, etc. GP4-seasons are a massive improvement but expensive and IME a bit fragile

[TrevA]

I’ve bought Schwalbe Durano Double Defence, which seems to have decent reviews and was only £26.99 from Halfords (do click and collect or price match though, it was £37 if bought in store!). Im still on the lookout for a suitable 23mm winter tyre for the my wife’s winter bike.

[RJBingham]

My former winter bike was limited to 23 mm tyres . My choice was Schwalbe Durano plus , the wired version are reasonably priced . I’m now using a Boardman CX ( S/H purchase) 32 mm Schwalbe Marathon Supreme, bliss no more worrying my fillings are being shaken out .

[hamster]

I have a lightly worn pair of 700Cx23 Conti GP4Seasons which I would happily sell for £30. PM me if interested.

[keyboardmonkey]

I run Continental Grand Prix 4 Season 25mm tyres on a couple of bikes, but the prices have gone crazy just lately. I have a pair in stock and I will replace an existing rear tyre that has - uncharacteristically - punctured twice and set it aside for front wheel duties.

[rareposter]

I’ve always used Gatorskins but they are getting quite expensive nowadays....

I run Continental Grand Prix 4 Season 25mm tyres on a couple of bikes, but the prices have gone crazy just lately.

Merlin have a decent sale on tyres at the moment, up to 40% off in some cases. Lots of Continental tyres, Schwalbe as well.

Personally, I don't rate Gatorskins at all. They're a very hard tyre which is good for puncture resistance but is both uncomfortable and renowned for being a bit slippy in wet conditions.
Similar to how everyone raves about Marathon for puncture resistance - yes, it takes a lot to get through a Marathon but they're slow, draggy and very "dead" to ride on.

Thankfully, tubeless has made this whole "winter tyre" debate pretty much irrelevant. Put some decent tyres on, go ride. When they're worn out, bin them and take a look at the various shards of debris, thorns etc that the tubeless has sealed.

[cyclop]

Whatever tyre you buy,try to get one that doesn,t have a reputation for difficult refitting .....like my Conti 5000

[Cugel]

I’ve always used Gatorskins but they are getting quite expensive nowadays....

I run Continental Grand Prix 4 Season 25mm tyres on a couple of bikes, but the prices have gone crazy just lately.

Merlin have a decent sale on tyres at the moment, up to 40% off in some cases. Lots of Continental tyres, Schwalbe as well.

Personally, I don't rate Gatorskins at all. They're a very hard tyre which is good for puncture resistance but is both uncomfortable and renowned for being a bit slippy in wet conditions.
Similar to how everyone raves about Marathon for puncture resistance - yes, it takes a lot to get through a Marathon but they're slow, draggy and very "dead" to ride on.

Thankfully, tubeless has made this whole "winter tyre" debate pretty much irrelevant. Put some decent tyres on, go ride. When they're worn out, bin them and take a look at the various shards of debris, thorns etc that the tubeless has sealed.

I'll second the tubeless mode for reducing the winter punctures. In practice, I seem to have had more penetrations since going tubeless on all but one bike now. But these penetrations (all from thorns) have sealed immediately, with no need to stop or even to pump up the tyre once home.

Depending on the kind of punctures you might be at risk from where you ride, tubeless means also that you can fit tyres that are supple-walled and fast. Many of the faster tyres normally used in nice weather and conditions are just as good in winter if the punctures likely are only of the small thorn or glass-speck kind. If you have flints and broken glass sidewall slashers, perhaps not.

These days there are also many fast supple-wall tubeless tyres of relatively light weight that also have the sort of tread patterns useful on winter roads that are wet, mucky and full of gravelly murk washed out of the fields. I like Schwalbe G-One Speeds and Allrounds, meself but there are other makes of similar tread, light weight and suppleness.

You do have to learn the techniques for dealing with tubeless tyres; and you may need a pressurised blaster-on thingy to initially seat tubeless when new. But once you've successfully fitted them they're much more "fit & forget" than tubed tyres. It's a trivial thing to top up sealants, for example. (And most last far longer than the blurb on the bottle suggests). I top up the sealant in mine about once a year and only change it if a tyre is worn out.

As you say, it's quite a surprise (and a pleasure) to see the number of thorns or other small penetrators inside a worn out tubeless tyre when you remove it. You don't notice most when they happen but even when you do it increases the pleasure to see them self-seal so quickly and effectively.

I've yet to have a serious slash-type puncture that won't seal. A thick internal mend-patch and a spare tube seems the best out-on-the-road solution so I do carry them but have never used them, in about 7 or 8 years of using tubeless now.