Race tyres on test

The Tech team take a look at the best tyres for enhancing your bike

If you are looking to inject some performance into your ride, the first place you should look is your tyre choice. Without doubt your tyres are the key to unlocking performance gains, and by performance gains we’re not just talking about speed. Choosing the right tyre will also improve handling, safety and comfort; you name it and a good tyre will probably enhance that aspect of your bike’s character.

Being the only point of contact between bike and road, your tyre has to pack a lot of features into what amounts to a tiny contact patch and almost all features are fighting against each other. It’s important that the construction of the main body of the tyre, the ‘carcass’, is robust enough to remain stable through rapid direction changes and hard cornering as well as being durable enough to prevent punctures. Yet a good tyre needs to be light and supple enough to deform and recover effectively to reduce energy loss through hysteresis – which results in lower rolling resistance and equals a faster tyre.

While a race tyre is sometimes designed as the preserve of exactly that, a tyre to just be used on race days, most of us really need a tyre that can provide benefits on a day-to-day basis. To this extent, tyres need to cope with a range of weather and surface conditions while remaining reliable enough to not get shredded at the slightest hint of gravel or road debris.

We’ve chosen six tyres we think deserve the title of Everyday Race Tyre. In keeping with current preferences and trends, some are tubeless compatible and all are available in a number of width options, rendering them compatible with all road bikes.

“You name it and a good tyre will probably enhance it”