Continental Terra Speed

The Terra Speed is Continental's new gravel tyre designed for dry and loose conditions and it certainly works, making the transition between tarmac and gravel barely noticeable. It's grippy, robust and surprisingly supple for such a tough tyre.

• Pros: Great grip on hardpacked dirt and gravel; decent rolling on road; easy to fit
• Cons: Narrow widths in 650B size

I can guess what you're thinking... 'Isn't that just a rebadged Schwalbe G-One?' They certainly do look very similar, and thankfully the performance is on a par too. In fact, I reckon the Terra Speed might just take the overall honours by a whisker.

I tested the Schwalbe G-One Bite Microskin TL-Easy back in 2018 and it's still one of my favourite tyres for the way it works well on the road and when you head off onto gravel tracks and canal paths.

The Terra Speed has similar sized knobbly bits as the G-One Bite (if you want deeper there is the Terra Trail option), and it behaves in exactly the same way.

Grip isn't as good as a true road tyre because you don't have as much rubber on the ground, but you can still push hard into a bend without worrying about the Terra Speed scrabbling for traction, helped by Continental's Black Chilli compound, the super-tacky one found on its road range.

Rolling resistance is pretty good as well. They certainly don't feel sluggish when cruising along, and they aren't so weighty that they feel stodgy when climbing.

Why is all of this so important for an off-road tyre?

Well, most of us don't live with a network of gravel track right outside our door, so unless you want to drive somewhere first you are going to need to ride on the road to get to the gravel, or to string sections of gravel tracks and trails together.

Finding dry gravel sections in one of the wettest Decembers on record has been quite the challenge, but where I have the Terra Speeds work pretty faultlessly. The minimal tread bites just enough that you aren't floating around all over the place and you have enough grip when climbing out of the saddle.

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When paired with a wide wheel rim like that found on the Hunt 4-Season Gravel Disc X-Wide wheelset, the 40mm width of the Continentals sits perfectly with the outer row of knobs sitting proudly on the shoulder of the tyre, giving much better cornering grip than I originally expected.

Hardpacked gravel routes like byways and canal paths are where the Terra Speeds are best suited, and in the warmer months they'll work just as well on dry mud trails through the woods and across fields.

They feel fast in all of these conditions and offer a fair amount of feedback too, so even if you do break traction you can easily catch the slide through the bends.

The Terra Speeds are tubeless ready and fitted to a variety of rim widths with ease; they sealed fine straight away too, with no sealant oozing its way out through the sidewalls like you can find with some tyre brands.

My only real criticism of the G-One Bites was that they could be a little fragile and cut relatively easily, but these Contis look and feel to be very robust.

Incorporating the ProTection technology from its other off-road tyres, Continental has given the Terras a thicker tyre casing tread with four 60TPI (threads per inch) plies under the tread and three in the sidewall, for an overall of 240TPI and 180TPI respectively, made up of various materials.

In the real world, that's resulted in not a single mark on them after a couple of hundred miles of off-road riding and probably another hundred more on the road which are mostly strewn with debris at the moment.

The Terra Speeds are available in four sizes, 35mm and 40mm in both 650B and 700C sizes. Many brands' gravel tyres are available in much wider options, especially when it comes to the 650B, so it's a shame not to see something like a 48mm here.

The UK rrp for these tyres is £59.95 and while you can put tyres on some cars for less than this, they aren't massively overpriced compared with the opposition.

When I tested the G-One Bites they were £58.95 and the brilliant Juniper Ridge tyres come in at £60.

Bontrager does offer the GR2 TLR Team Issue tyre for a tenner less at rrp, though, so there is some competition out there.

Overall, the Terra Speeds are an excellent tyre choice if you want speed and grip on a mixture of firmish terrains. Their transition between road and gravel is brilliant, and as long as you stay away from soft mud you'll be impressed by the grip.

Verdict

Brilliant gravel tyres that grip well on the loose stuff without giving much away on the road