Wet Road with slick tyres

Conti 4seasons are the
Conti 4seasons are the grippiest tyres I’ve had. Also (by far) the fastest wearing. Schwalbe Duranos are my current favoured tyre for winter riding – reasonable grip and puncture protection.

Completely slick bicycle

Completely slick bicycle tyres offer the best grip only on the completely slick surfaces which don’t happen in the real world outside the laboratory or a velodrome.

A diamond/file pattern tread which you can see on some tougher winter/roubaix kind of tyres actually improves grip on the roads due to the fact that it interlocks with the imperfections of the surface. Even seemingly the smoothest tarmac or concrete is really rough when looking up close.

Love the GP 4000s for

Love the GP 4000s for everyday riding – they are good in the wet too but there are softer tyres out there with even more grip. e.g. Conti’s GP4 seasons are fabulous if you can afford them given their wear rate is a bit higher.

As everyone else says – avoid tread on a tyre for the road. You are actually degrading the grip (by having less tyre in contact with the road) if there is a tread on the tyre

I’ve been using a set of GP

I’ve been using a set of GP 4000S II for the past two winters and they’ve been great in the wet. I’ve never had an off, but I do take care when cornering if it’s wet.  As with any slick tyre, they are useless if you hit a loose surface. Watch out for piles of grit and salt at the side of the road, or built up near junctions off the line that the cars take.

I’ve only had one flat with them, and that was after running over a large patch of glass broken glass from a car accident. Having said that, I rarely flat anyway (about once per year), YMMV.

As other have said, unless you’re a big guy, don’t pump them up to anything like 110-120psi, you’ll ruin the ride and reduce grip for no real gain.

There’s still loads of tread left on mine after around 1,000km. I didn’t realise, but the two small pits on the surface of the tyre are actually wear indicators, when they can’t be seen, you need to replace the tyre.

http://www.conti-tyres.co.uk/conticycle/twi.shtml

Ad

Another vote for Conti GP4000
Another vote for Conti GP4000 in 25mm as a great winter tyre. The ride isn’t as good as some softer tyres but they are very hard to beat for wet grip and puncture protection.

As has been said tread patterns don’t do much on a road tyre but rubber compound makes a massive difference (some cheap tyres are truly awful in the wet). Buy a Conti with the Black Chilli compound and try to avoid metal and paint in the rain.

Not sure what you weigh but at 70kg I’d put about 80psi in the front and 90 in the rear for a 25mm tyre.

Theoretically tread should

Theoretically tread should help when riding on mud / slime / leaf covered roads at this time of year – e.g. the stuff you get under low hanging trees. The only time my front tyre has properly given way under light braking was in such conditions. That was a slick tyre & slick mud combination.

But you’d need a lot of tread for it to have much of an effect. 

Water clearing apparently isn’t relevant because acquaplning is practically impossible at cycling speeds. 

Wider tyres and lower pressures increase contact area and therefore grip and stability.