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what tires for wet pavement and rough roads

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what tires for wet pavement and rough roads

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flag chickenrunz
Posted: Sep 1, 2025 at 21:22 Quote
just got my first ever road bike. err .. a Marin DSX flat bar gravel ...

so i ride on tarmac, and frequently ride over road edges and transit across onto wet pavement and in doing so there are roadside kerb bumps that are around 1 inch or so.

what kind of tires should i be looking for? and how wide?

(eg Schwalbe Little Big Ben 38c with all those mini squishy bumpiness?)
Continental Contact Urban 40mm - says it's made for ebikes. will that be grippy enough for non ebikes?

currently have 45mm gravel tires and they are awesome. but wondering if i can get lower rolling resistance yet be super safe. i am not talented like most of you guys ...

edit: found some Conti Contact Urban 35c for half price so i got a pair to try ...
flag dirttorpedo
Posted: Oct 17, 2025 at 9:44 Quote
I generally find that the fatter the tire the more confidence inspiring it is and the lighter the casing the "faster" feeling it is. Unfortunately, the lighter casing fast tires tend to cost a lot of $. The funnest fat tire I've used was the Pacenti Pari Moto in 38mm x 650b. unfortunately a fairly fragile tire. I've had similar fun with Soma Randonneur tires in 650b x 42mm. I would imagine anything by Rene Herse would perform similarly (our of my budget). My current fat tire compromise between price, fun and puncture protection are Panaracer gravel kings - both the slicks and the sk tread patterns. Depending on the terrain you are traversing I've found the 700c x 32mm schwalbe marathons on my touring bike quite confidence inspiring on gravel multi use paths, although that bike was super fun with the 700c x 42mm panaracer gravel kings that came on the bike when I bought it used.

If you really want to compare rolling resitance check out the rolling reistance guy here. https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/

People criticise his methodology, but this is probably the best data source for head to head comparison of tire rolling resitance by brand and model.
flag giangluongthi
Posted: Aug 13, 2026 at 23:20 Quote
chickenrunz wrote:
just got my first ever road bike. err .. a Marin DSX flat bar gravel ...

so i ride on tarmac, and frequently ride over road edges and transit across onto wet pavement and in doing so there are roadside kerb bumps that are around 1 inch or so.

what kind of tires should i be looking for? and how wide?

(eg Schwalbe Little Big Ben 38c with all those mini squishy bumpiness?)
Continental Contact Urban 40mm - says it's made for ebikes. will that be grippy enough for non ebikes?

currently have 45mm gravel tires and they are awesome. but wondering if i can get lower rolling resistance yet be super safe. i am not talented like most of you guys ...

edit: found some Conti Contact Urban 35c for half price so i got a pair to try ...

At half price, I’d just run them and see how they feel on your roads.
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