Tag: tubeless tires

The Gravel King SK+ tires have decent roll, are seemingly quite resistant to punctures, and have copious volume for their size. In fact, you had better have room for 50mm tires on your bike if you want to try out these 650B tires.

There are several sizes of the Gravel King SK+ tires in the range, we happen to have the 650B X 48mm versions. The tires we have are the blackwall versions, but Panaracer lists a skin wall version as well. None of the funky colors as with other Gravel King variants here though, which you don’t get with the SK+. Just plain black tread.

The tubeless ‘dance’ isn’t hard to do once you get the hang of it. That said- it isn’t for everybody. Using tubes is definitely a lot easier and comes with less maintenance issues. Of course, they do fail when punctured, there is no free lunch. You’ll just have to decide which suits you better, and if all this maintenance is worth the benefits for your riding.

If you are racing, or if you want a great tire that makes riding to gravel and dirt roads more fun and speedy, this is your tire.

This tire isn’t a ‘bad’ tire, but for the MidWest it isn’t a tire that lights a fire underneath me when I ride it. It does the job well enough, sure, but with its slightly harsher ride quality and lack of volume, it isn’t on the same plane as the Resolute or the Byway, both of which we are testing in this series of SG2 reviews.

This was the model I was most concerned about going into this review. Since the standard Resolute is still my #1 gravel tire, I was really hopeful that the SG2 model would at least approximate what I liked about this tire.

Basically, I likely would have moved on to another tire by now. But I have not. And that has actually been just fine with me, because although the heat and the smoke from multiple fires around California kept my miles low overall, the times I did ride the Touregs have been just really good to live with.

It’s a compelling tire. Other than the sand issue, it’s a good sized tire, it rolls well, grips well, excels in rougher conditions, and holds air nicely.

I really like the 47mm version of the Rutland. It rides on our gravel here really well. It is stable, smooth riding, and when you need a little bite on dirt or finer hardpack, it does have grip.

The Ehline has impressive grip qualities, so if traction is a concern, this tire should have you covered. Gravel is handled well by the Ehline and it does everything else well enough that, in my opinion, it should be highly considered for those of you who use a mountain bike as a gravel bike and as a mountain bike.