Category: Tires

In this post, I want to get to what I found out about the County tires on gravel, how they rolled on pavement, and anything else noteworthy.

The Kimberlite is a tire that American Classic says is meant for pavement and mixed-surface rides. However; here at Riding Gravel’s home, we have found that a minimal amount of tread works fine on deeper, loose gravel.

Okay, so we have a tire from a brand you know well, but not for bicycle tires. It looks a heck of a lot like a competitor’s tire, which we just so happen to have, and so we will be comparing the two.

News breaks today of updates to that range of tires. The company has a new puncture protection system and has lowered weights across the range as well as engineering in a lower rolling resistance for their tires across the range.

This tire is kind of an oddball in WTB’s line up. The other SG2 cut protected tires I’ve tried are good, but this Vulpine is so much nicer riding

But I really would like to try these with a good sprinkling of ‘pixie dust’ on them. A dust that would allow the tire to give me a more compliant ride across all conditions.

Oddly, the Vulpine isn’t as fast a rolling tire on gravel which is loose, chunky, and deep as other tires with similar width. However; once you get out of situations where the terrain is loose and deep, the Vulpine begins to show up as a fast, controllable tire.

I liked the tread pattern. It looked right up my alley, an alley paved with asphalt mixed with dirt roads.

So, in the end, I come back to that old adage: “You get what you pay for”. In terms of the American Classic Wentworths, that’s not saying they are bad.

What we have here is a new tire from WTB with an old name that has a new mission: Be fast on gravel.