Back on October the 1st I posted my 'Tyres of the Falling Leaves' quandary with the choice of three options, Conti's GP 4 Season, Vittoria's Pave CG or the Specialized Roubaix tyre. So I ended up going for the Specialized Roubaix tyre, this is how I got on.
I fitted them to my Summer bike just before the London Cycle Show. The weather forecast for the week was to be dry, but knowing this could change at any time I thought that this was as good a time as any to swap over into some winter boots. I say Boots as these tyres are on the portly scale, and even fitting them to my test Dura Ace 7850 Carbon Clincher wheels could do nothing to hide this. As I mentioned before these tyres are slightly different from the norm, in that the width is meant to be 23 mm and the height 25 mm. In practice the tyre seems to come out bigger than those measurements.
SBC Roubaix
This in itself was no bad thing as they offered plenty of straight line comfort. Round corners this was a Jekyll and Hyde monster as any straight line confidence was replaced by a breakaway edge that scared the crap out of me. I put this down to the blocky almost square edged nature of the tyre. Due to it's design I did not have any confidence it taking corners at any decent speed.
As one of my original briefs was to have a tyre that behaved like a Summer tyre, but offered some level of protection that Autumn and Winter could throw at it. The SBC tyre offered tonnes of protection, but it lacked rider feel, leaving you feeling isolated and distant from the road. Grip was okay in the dry, and in the wet it left a lot to be desired. I tried to persevere with the tyre, after a few weeks I gave up.
So what next. Being a bit strapped for cash I pulled out of the garage the tyres that I had put on at the end of August, just before 'Phil and Friends'. Continentals Grand Prix 24 mm would have to be my makeshift Winter tyres until I could release some funds to buy something more appropriate. The weeks passed by and I realised that actually I had no need to switch the tyres out.
In the dry and the wet they provided good grip, no doubt helped in part by the Black Chilli compound. This new(ish) tyre compound is good and bad. The good is that it offers grip by the bucketful and when braking it is like throwing a parachute behind you. This remained constant no matter the conditions, which is a great attribute to have. The negative, well that is the increased wear and decreased life span. Unlike the GP4000, which is a close relation, if foregoes the Vectran breaker in favour of a cheaper Nylon version. This seems to have decreased side wall stiffness, which is no bad thing in Summer, but in Winter when you may want to run the tyre pressure a little lower it increases the wear.
Being a heavy rider this will increase the speed in which the tyre is worn. Generally I can put out at least six months on a tyre before needing to change it, with the Grand Prix it was closer to four and a half. Using it through Summer I would guess that it would be closer to the six month mark.
So in conclusion a tyre that was never designed for British Winters actually manages to do a very good job. With prices being close to the GP 4 Season I would opt for those rather than the Grand Prix next time.
So what tyre is the ultimate Winter tyre. Well at the moment there isn't one perfect tyre, but if I could create my own it would be this. The grip, tread and compound of the Pave CG, but combine it with the added sidewall Protection that the 4 Season has and I'd have it in the 24 mm width please (and for good measure in black) Ironically Continental make this tyre in a Tubular format in the Sprinter Gatorskin (and they used to make a Competition Gatorskin also). If they only made it in a clincher, I would indeed be a happy camper.
