Utimate Gravel Tire Test (in German)

I paid for the full download, its worth it. this is the first gravel tire test I have seen with actual numbers that make sense.
The Gran Fondo one gave no numbers for the rolling resistance part, and ended up awarded “first” to a relatively slow tire, and gave points for appearance. 
The GCN “test” pegged the difference between these exact same Contis and gp5000s at something like 200 watts for a pair on rollers at speed. Clearly so flawed as to be less than useless. Then their "gravel” roll-down was on what looked like smooth hardpack. The GP5000’s won on the “gravel.” Another red flag for the illogic of the methods.
The numbers in this German test seem pretty much in line with the fast MTB tires tested in bike tire rolling resistance, and the differences shown for the various Schwalbes with and without tubes are precisely in line with any test of that Ive ever seen.
Kudos to the testers.
The puncture tests in these things are always hard to compare to real life. The Compass (Rene Herse) in the Gran Fondo test for example... everyone alive knows those tires have zero defense against punctures IRL. And yet they are shown as being on par more or less with the gravel king sk’s.
And generally if you look at reports of who has flats at DK, the panaracers have traditionally gotten kudos for robustness and G-Ones have been panned for being soft and easy to flat... And Ramblers don’t seem to do particularly well against punctures.
But who knows... those reports are all pretty random and this testing last least gives hard data.

Good points.  Yep, for just over $2 I bought the full report. 

It is a little odd they test 40mm tires at 50psi with an inner tube.  That is probably why they seemed to mostly group around 26 watts (+/- 1.5W).  A more supple carcass will show greater benefits at lower pressure 

I will say that the Maxis Rambler has about the thinnest carcass and less puncture protection than anything I have bought, and it shows in this test.  The only impact to me is that I get little wet spots on the tire where something small has poked a hole and then sealed.  (although oddly it scored better than the GK-SK.

I was a little surprised to see the Panaracer GK-SK and the WTB tires score so badly on puncture (and to some degree on rolling resistance) – as those seem to be goto tires for gravel. 

irideiam wrote:Wish they would have included the Donnelly Xplor & EPM