Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Continental Terra Adventure 700 x 45mm Tires Review: Final Verdict

The Terra Adventure was surprisingly good in mud.
Note: Continental Tires sent Guitar Ted Productions two Terra Adventure 700 X 45mm tires for test and review at no charge. Guitar Ted was not paid, nor bribed, for this review. All opinions are Guitar Ted's.

This will be the final word on Continental's Terra Adventure tires I have been testing over the past few months. The previous update can be seen by clicking HERE. Another link in the post referenced there will take you all the way back to the beginning of the test. Please refer to those articles first before asking any questions as I may have already covered what you are wanting to know in those articles.

Now, on to the final opinions on these new Terra Adventure tires from Continental!

I'm going to break down my impressions in two categories: Things I Liked, and then Things I Did Not Like. Then I will have some final comments. First up will be the.......

Things I Did Not Like:

  • Initial Tire Width. While these Continental tires followed my experiences with the brand in being undersized according to claimed width by Continental, they did eventually stretch out to be 45mm, or a little wider. I'd prefer it did not take as long to realize the claimed width. In my case, it wasn't that big of a deal. However; if you were to buy a set of Terra Adventure tires for an upcoming event, expecting a certain width as stated on the casing, and then found out these tires take a while to realize this stated width, it nay not align with your expectations. So, this is kind of a negative in my opinion.
  • Air Retention: This is tricky because air retention can be influenced by several things which have nothing to do with the tire. Rim tape, valve stems, and sealant type all have an effect on the outcome. So, all I can say is these tires with Orange Seal weren't very impressive as far as air retention goes. I know my tape jobs and my valve stems are good. In fact, I had two different valve stems on this wheel set and this did not deter the loss of air, nor did they improve air retention, so....
  • Whiskers: Those mold release "whiskers" on these tires are ridiculous. They probably have a negative effect on aero and grip, but this is negligible, most likely. More annoying than anything. 


 Things I Did Like:

  • The Ride Quality: For an aggressive tire tread pattern, the Terra Adventure is very smooth. The damped quality of the casings was phenomenal. These tires are also conspicuously quiet for having the type of tread the Terra Adventure tires have. This was something I remarked about during every ride I did with these tires. No matter the surface.
  •  Grip: On dirt, sandy dirt, pea gravel, and pavement these tires exhibited an impressive ability to grip in corners. I was very impressed by how I would have to go ridiculously fast into a corner to get these tires to start to give up on tacky, buff single track and service roads. Well, faster than I'd feel comfortable with, let's just stop there, I guess. I was never the less surprised at how grippy the Terra Adventure tires were though, and this with seemingly little speed penalty, which is noteworthy.
  • Great All-Around Tire: I'll dive into this more with my final remarks, but for an aggressive tire as this one is, I wasn't necessarily expecting the Terra Adventure to measure up to all situations I wanted to ride in. 

Final Verdict:

Short answer: I love this tire! Longer Answer: Okay, as hinted at with my final point above, the Terra Adventure seemingly has no real weakness when it comes to multi-surface riding. I wouldn't necessarily chose it to ride a paved century, but let's be reasonable here.

My feeling is this tire is perfect as the tire for any multi-surface event, or riding you may want to do. For instance, we have an event in Iowa called CORE4, which features pavement, gravel, single track, and dirt roads. If I were to tackle this event, I'd choose the Terra Adventure over anything else I've ever tried for gravel. This even does better than my old WTB Resolute tires at all-around riding.

The Terra Adventure even hints at being pretty good in mud, which I found surprising. So, as far as all-around riding, including pavement, dirt, or gravel, goes, the Terra Adventure has taken a spot at the top for tires which I would recommend to anyone doing this sort of riding. If you have more focused needs, such as pavement-heavy courses, or finer gravel courses, then yes - There are better tire choices out there for you. But for everyday, all-conditions, ready for anything riding? This is the tire I'd ride.    

1 comment:

MG said...

I recently started running a 29x2.1" Race King on the rear of the BWNN, and virtually all of your comments about the Terra Adventure are also true of the Race King. Makes me want to run more Continental tires on my bikes...