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Are they a good all purpose gravel/road/bridleway tyre?
PS. They're for a Charge Plug 3.
Looking at them, Id have thought so, so long as you don't expect wonders in mud. Have just ordered some in 30c flavour for my commuter, with the intention they should manage a bit of light off-road ...
Awful tyre in a 35. Very draggy.
The smart sam is much better all rounder in 35 guise. although I don't know if it comes in a 38.
I wouldn't have said draggy although I've not compared it to much. The more expensive "semi slick" schwalbe is the Sammy slick, I've ended up with one of each.
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">For a tenner though they're great if you just need tyre that are black, round and have a smidgen of grip off road.</span>
I'm currently using some Maxxis Roamers, which came with the bike. They have very little grip and are heavy (780g, or thereabouts). I'm looking for something that is lighter and has some grip to it.
Sounds like the CX Comp will be a vast improvement on the Roamers then.
I still maintain that the smart sam' are a better all round tyre, not as hard wearing as the cx comp though.
I previously had 38mm CX comps on my commuter. Swapped to 42/47mm Smart Sams about a year ago. Better all-rounder for my use which includes road, gravel paths, tame trail centres, tame singletrack.
Not sure I agree with the CX Comp being draggier though.
Thanks guys. I'll have a look at the Smart Sams as well.
wtb nano is the default answer here for good reason (if you can fit them in)
smart sam are decent enough though, and cheap
For me, I'm 80% road, 20% gravel / hard pack dirt. My bike has Clement Xplor MSOs, but I'm swapping to Schwalbe G-Ones (38c), mostly because I don't want the drag of a full off-road tyre on the tarmac. They get good reviews, especially favourable about the rolling resistance. Interestingly, they get pulled up for being not robust enough, but one Paul Oldham rode them to victory at last year's three peaks CX, which is notoriously hard on wheels and tyres.
Other end of the scale from some of the tyres mentioned above, but my experience is that you don't need very much tread at all when on dry, hard pack and I hate dragging it around on the road!
Unless there is that nasty hard packed but greasy mud around you don't need much tread. Small grooves will pack with any mud anyway. Gravel needs no tread at all, just something fairly cut proof. this means a compromise between toughness and weight.