I always find reviews for gravel bike tyres quite contentious as obviously the reviewer doesn’t ride the same local trails as I do. One riders “gravel” can vary wildly from anothers. Some stick to fire roads, others live in a gravel nirvana like Aberfoyle whereas my local riding is a mix of mud, roots, fire roads, singletrack, bridleways all of which can be sunbaked like concrete or resemble a swamp with patches of cookie dough, somtimes in the space of a few miles on the same day. Once in a while I actually get to ride on actual gravel!
So you can see any tyre that comes to me for a review is going to be properly put to the test, even in conditions they are not really designed for, such is the uniqueness of the UK gravel scene.
Luckily, and I say lucky for you the reader and not me the rider, we have had both biblical rain adding to the already saturated ground and 35 degree temperatures during the weeks I’ve been testing these two tyres from Vittoria.
I really like how Vittoria catergorise their tyres, the higher the number, the more knobs/aggressive the tyre is so lets start low and work up. Both tyres were set up tubeless with Vittoria’s own sealant on my usual wheels. No punctures occured throughout the test and this might be down to Vittoria’s use of a anti-puncture belt in the construction of both models tested. Both tyres also benefit from Graphine empregnated rubber for suppleness and longevity, “endurance” casing and reinforced sidewalls.
The Vittoria Terreno T50 is what used to be called a semi slick tyre, it has low height knobs in the centre that graduate to much higher knobs on the shoulder of the tyre. Vittoria says the tyre has great efficiency between pavement and off road and I tend to agree. The centre section gives a consistant roll along ability with a near silent performance. The version I tested was the largest avaliable at 50mm. This big size didn’t add any noticable drag on tarmac or hard packed trail and I was very glad of the extra volume on rough ground. When the trails became damp I was able to adjust the air pressure for a little more grip to counteract any slide that occured. The side knobs look quite aggressive but when cornering the transition from almost slick to knobbles was smooth and predictable. Any wobble on this type of tyre is usually much more pronounced when cornering hard on tarmac, more so than on dirt. The T50 did not suffer this and I became confident that I could really lean the bike over in turns. The shoulder knobs came into their own when the going got a lot more loamy and would bite into the trail and grip just when you though traction had gone. You need to get a few rides under your belt to get used to this but once learned you are able to use this to your advantage. That said, extreme mud conditions as you’d expect aren’t this tyre’s forte but as an allrounder with a drier conditions bias they one of the best tyres I’ve tried.
I had a couple of comments on social media that said the tyres wear out quickly, I put around 300 miles on the tyres and I couldn’t see any discernable wear. This also included a long lock up skid when a car tried to T-bone me. I did leave some of the rubber from the side knobs on the giy’s front bumper though!
the Vittoria Terreno T70 is Vittoria’s very successful and popular “Mezcal” MTB tyre in gravel form. It has more agressive centre knobs than the T50 but these are placed in such a way that they almost form a central ridge that the tyre rolls on. This reduces rolling resistance a lot and there didn’t seem to be any drag, although there is a pleasing buzz to them when crusing on tarmac. Off road the T70 had to cope with quite a lot as I managed to find much muddiness. The T70 coped admirably though and traction and turning wasn’t an issue. As you can see from the picture that tacky clay/mud will build up on the tyres at slow speed but once you get the wheel spinning again they do clear quickly. In all other conditions from damp to desert (it did get dusty for a couple of days, a guy can dream!) they are in their element and although these were only 45mm in width I found them perfect for my local riding, in fact I think the 50mm version might be overkill for these tyres.
If I had to chose between the two tyres it would come down to what time of year it was, late spring-summer-early autumn I’d run a T70 on the front wheel and a T50 on the rear for some turn in bite at the front and less rolling resistance and predictable breakway at the rear. The rest of the year and If I could only run one model it would be the T70 as it could cope with anything the UK could throw at it barring extreme weather.
you can find out more about Vittorria’s gravel range on their website Vittoria.com
UK GRAVEL COLLECTIVE 