This is by far the most confidence-inspiring tire in the whole test (not even Soma Cazadero can compete with that!). On bumpy forest rout, this tire still provided a very admirable level of comfort. Of course, the bigger the obstacle, the more apparent is the narrow form factor, but on the fast gravel road, Steilacoom is outstanding (only second to 50c Cazadero, that was run at much lower air pressure). So there is no “meaty” feeling of riding a big, chunky tire at a low air pressure but the Extralight casing is doing its magic to really smooth the road imperfections. Why? 39 mm is not a wide tire, and it looks like the big knobs are making the tire itself even less pronounced than the 38c moniker suggests. No punctures at all.Īnd how about the comfort? For sure, there is a lot of it. But I wanted to get the most supple variant possible so I took the risk and to be honest after a couple of long rides I can tell you that they hold up pretty well. This is where the suppleness magic happens but also this is the Achilles’s heel of this tire – you can fairly easily tear the bead when encountering sharp rocks etc. The bead itself is very thin and almost as fabric when you try to squeeze it. I bought Rene Herse Steilacoom 38c in the most supple, Extralight casing because I wanted to experience the best comfort Rene Herse can provide. All the test was done on my benchmark bike (titanium Enigma Escape with Wave carbon handlebar and Redshift Suspension stem 100 mm). Having set the appropriate air pressure I started the comparison test mounting the tested tires on the front wheel while keeping Rene Herse Barlow Pass Endurance tire (27 PSI) at the back. Soma Cazadero 50c measured 47 mm wide so I run it at 22 PSI and for Steilacoom 38c (which measured exactly 39 mm) I set up 27 PSI air pressure. The last two tires needed a different air pressures. Why? Because changing air pressure by 1 PSI or even less from my experience is not ground-breaking in terms of comfort improvement (at least not with my testing methodology, which does not use a very sophisticated and sensitive measuring tools). So, to make things easier I decided to run all of those 4 tires at 25 PSI.
Challenge GravelGrinder measured almost 43 mm, Snoqualmie Pass a little more than 41 mm, WTB Bayway was only 41 mm and only Terrene Elwood was true to its 42c description measuring exactly 42 mm. But when I measured each tire on my Spinergy GX wheels (24 mm internal wide), I found out that 4 different tires were very close to that 42 mm measurement. 42c means that the tire should be, more or less, 42 mm wide. I started with 42c tires setting 25 PSI air pressure because from my experience this kind of air pressure offers the best combination of suppleness and speed on various road conditions. Based on this simple formula: (narrower tire width / wider tire width)* PSI of narrower tire, I calculated the appropriate air pressure for each contender. Different was only the air pressure because the bigger the tire the lower the air pressure you need to achieve the same tire casing tension (which means the same level of deformation when the external force is applied). To make this test as objective as possible I did my standard vibration measurements with all of those tires in a tubeless setup. So everyone should find their best tire in this comparison. Finally, in the mix, we have both a very quick, almost slick tires and true off-road variants like Steilacoom from Rene Herse. Here is the list of the most promising candidates:Īs you can see this is a very broad tire selection because of the presence of both narrow (38c) tires and a very wide one (50c), but also there is both super supple Extralight casing of Rene Herse tire and more durable, Endurance variant.
Since then I got the chance to test a lot more tires (including, according to many, the most supple of them all – Rene Herse tires) and now I know that a rider looking for improved comfort has a lot of interesting options to choose from. I was amazed by the comfort improvement I got comparing to something more standard in terms of suppleness like Panaracer GravelKing SK tires. The first really supple tire that I have tested was Soma Cazadero. What is my choice? Read the article to find out! In this supple tire shootout I compared 6 different tires so you can choose the one you will enjoy the most. This should be obvious to anyone, yet still, many riders focus on more expensive and sophisticated solutions like suspension stems and seatpost instead of simply changing tires. Tires are the easiest and usually the cheapest way to improve the overall comfort when riding on a bike.
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