The flip side is that an insert will add extra weight to your set-up and since it’s rotating mass, your ride feel and your bike’s performance might be compromised. It may let you ride a flat more easily too. You can still lower the tire pressure though, to improve your grip and handling. They reduce tire deformation, so that the risk of squirming, bottoming out, pinch flats and sidewall damage is reduced. How you rideįinally, tire inserts give you a way to simultaneously get many of the benefits of both higher and lower gravel bike pressure. If your rides are principally tarmac but include some easy gravel stretches, you might be prepared to sacrifice some gravel grip and comfort for better progress when you’re on the road.Īnother consideration to throw in is that really muddy conditions can often be tackled better with narrow tires than with wider ones, as the tire will sink further into the slop and may find more traction, rather than floating on its surface. But if you’re riding hard, rocky trails, you’ll want a bit more air in your tire to ensure that you don’t bottom out on the rim or damage the tire’s sidewalls and cause the problems noted above.Ī smoother surface might be best ridden at higher pressure. This will increase grip, as the tire will conform more to the terrain. It’s another aspect of the too hard/too soft equation for optimum gravel bike tire pressure.Ī soft surface or icy conditions call for lower tire pressure. How soft the trail is is another factor to take into consideration when deciding the best gravel bike tire pressure to dial in before setting out. If you do want to run inner tubes or need to fit one to your gravel bike, TPU inner tubes like the Tubolito gravel range and Pirelli SmarTUBE are more puncture resistant than standard butyl tubes, although they’re considerably more expensive. Since most gravel bike tire pressure recommendations assume you’re riding tubeless tires, if you do use inner tubes or need to fit one to fix a puncture, you should raise your tire pressure by around 5psi to compensate. Also called a snakebike, this results in two parallel cuts in your inner tube that usually cause rapid pressure loss and are difficult to repair. That drastically reduces your chances of getting one of the most common causes of punctures when riding on uneven ground: the pinch flat. Among other advantages, from the perspective of setting your gravel tire pressure, the crucial one is that there’s no inner tube to get pinched between the tire’s sidewalls and the rim if you hit a rock. Tubed vs tubelessĪlmost all gravel bike riders set their tires up tubeless. Don’t forget to factor in any luggage you’re carrying too - your bike will weigh a lot more if you’re set up with everything you need for bikepacking than if you’re just going for a short jaunt.
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