Note: WTB sent over a pair of the 700 x 50mm Byway tires and a pair of the 700 x 52mm Course tires for test and review. Guitar Ted Productions was neither paid or bribed for this review. All thoughts and opinions are Guitar Ted's.
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| Singular Peregrine Mk4 with WTB Course tires |
But be that as it may, I have some impressions of these tires to share so far, So, this post will be about sharing those thoughts. If you missed the technical stats and measurement articles, please go back and read those articles HERE and HERE.
As a reminder, the two tire sets I received to be reviewed are the 700 X 50mm Byway and the 700 X 52mm Course tires. While getting "real gravel riding" in has been next to impossible, I do have rides on many surfaces including decomposed gravel, dirt, broken pavement, and regular paved streets and bike paths.
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| 700 x 50mm WTB Byway tires on the BMC MCD |
Visually the two models of WTB aero gravel tires look very rounded. I don't think I've run a tire with such a round casing since I had the Challenge Tire Getaway model on for review back in 2020.
Rounded off tires seem to be a good idea if you are trying to make things more aero, I would guess. But however this was decided upon at WTB, it does do certain things to handling. Things like less tire hitting the surface you are riding on. There is one other trait here which I will touch upon when I speak to the Byway specifically. For now, I want to focus in on the speed aspect.
Less tire hitting paved surfaces means a fast roll, and that is great. However; I remember looking at that Challenge Getaway and thinking it was going to act like a prow of a boat and try to push its way through loose gravel instead of rolling up and over the loose rocks. I'm not sure how the WTB tires will hndle this yet. With the 120TPI casings the hope is the tire will be supple enough that it will be like the Getaway and absorb the rocks, go over them, and not plow through them. We shall see.
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| The Byway essentially is a slick |
Now, getting to the Byway. This tire is essentially a road slick. Sure, there are some tread blocks....kind of, but I'm not leaning over that far to find out whether they will work or not.
You might think, "Well, air it down and see if you can get tread block engagement that way>" Okay, I did this. First of all, it did not help with traction. The tire is sketchy on anything slick, muddy, or wet. It acts like it looks. I'm not surprised by this at all.
What I was surprised by was the self-steer in the front and how much drag I was feeling compared to when the tire was at 35psi - 40psi. I was running a little above 20psi, and well, this tire doesn't work well down that low. Not for myself. I'll try something closer to 30psi next time and see if I can find a sweet spot. The point was that the Byway doesn't gain much, if any, traction at lower psi settings. It is just going to act like a slick tire, in my opinion.
This tire is also very fast feeling. I've not run the pressures down on this tire yet, and given how the Byway responded to very low pressure, I'll likely stick to something around 30psi for that test.
I think both tires have a nice, damped ride quality. It isn't super impressive in this regard, but it is very good, I think.
Both have held air well enough and I see no concerns with that. There has been no signs of casing weep, nothing negative at all in this regard, and I think the short term outlook is great with these tires. Whatever WTB did with materials and construction has been proven to be good....so far.
In the next post I will have some "real gravel rides" logged in and then we will learn even more about these new tires from WTB.
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