Test 2016: Road bike tyres between 14 and 70 euros - Expensive versus cheap: 12 road bike tyres in the test

70 euros for a 220 gram tyre? Material-loving road cyclists may shrug their shoulders, but for many amateur athletes this is a crazy price: for that money you can also get a full-grown car tyre that weighs at least 50 times more and lasts significantly longer. Tyre manufacturers justify the high prices for their top rubber tyres by saying that road bike tyres require a lot of manual work and that the effort required for a delicate road bike tyre is similar to that for a car tyre. That is true. But manual work or not, there are road bike tyres on the market for as little as ten euros. Are they no good at all because there is no budget for sensible ingredients, or are top tyres not that much better? But above all more expensive?

WIRE INSTEAD OF KEVLAR

To find out, we invited six major manufacturers to provide us with their best all-round tyres as well as their cheapest tyres. The cheapest tyres weigh an average of 305 grams (each) and are therefore noticeably heavier than the top models, which only weigh 217 grams on average. A large part of the additional weight is due to the steel wire tyre cores, which ensure a secure grip on the rim - this is where the term "clincher" comes from.

The core of the more expensive models is made of Kevlar or carbon fibres, which makes them foldable - hence the name "folding tyre". The wire ring increases the weight per tyre by around 80 grams, but it is a few euros cheaper than the folding version. The high-end tyres are all foldable, differing only in their construction and rubber compounds. Vittoria has recently added graphene to its high-quality tyres; put simply, this is a variant of pencil graphite from nanotechnology, which is said to have truly miraculous properties for a wide range of applications. Tyres with graphene are said to roll more easily, adhere better and wear out more slowly.

You can find the entire tyre test with these road bike tyres as a PDF download below:

• Continental Grand Prix 4000 S II 25 (54.90 Euro) - (TOUR test winner)
• Continental Ultrasport II 25 (19,90 Euro)
• Hutchinson Fusion 5 Galactik 25 TL (69.95 Euro)
• Hutchinson Equinox 23 (32,50 Euro)
• Michelin Power Competition 25 (55,95 Euro)
• Michelin Dynamic Sport 25 (13,95 Euro)
• Schwalbe Pro One 25 (69.90 Euro)
• Schwalbe Lugano 25 (17,90 Euro)
• Specialised Turbo Cotton 26 (59,90 Euro)
• Specialised Espoir Sport 25 (17,90 Euro)
• Vittoria Corsa 25 (69,95 Euro)
• Vittoria Zaffiro Pro 25 (24.95 Euro) - (TOUR-TIP: training tyre)

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