Review: WTB Course & Byway Aero Gravel Tires - Update On The Byway

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. 

I've managed to get enough time on the Byways to give a pretty solid update on their performance. If you missed the last update, I will post a link HERE. Please go back to catch up on how things have gone before this article published. 

The Byway is WTB's race oriented aero gravel tire with a width of 50mm. I have these mounted on WTB CGR carbon wheels with an inner rim width of 23mm. The Byway did not quite achieve the stated 50mm width at first, but currently they measure out at 51.31mm at 30psi. This is very good. It also indicates to me that the tires are now broken in and are going to perform at their best now. 

As previously stated in the impressions post, I thought the Byway may have a tendency to want to dance around and plow through looser gravel, rather than float over it. This would not be a good thing if so, because when a tire plows through looser gravel or dirt it means the rider has to exert more influence over the steering which is sapping energy best used on the pedals. I'll get back to this in a bit, but first I wanted to discuss the smoother gravel and pavement performance of the Byway. 

"Gravel" doesn't get much faster or smoother than this. 

The Byway on pavement and smoother terrain is fast. Very fast. But it also has a very nice, smooth, damped ride quality which I enjoyed. In the previous article to this entry I told you about how the Byway did not like low, low pressure and that I would try something around 30 psi the next time. I went with 30psi rear/28psi front, and I was very happy with the results. 

The Byway rolled with little resistance. (Or was that the tire cutting through the air more efficiently?) Whether or not the aero is working, I did notice less impacts from seams in the pavement, broken up bits of pavement, and on smoother gravel. So, I would be very happy to ride the Byway on a course with smooth features, dirt, pavement, and the like. But what about chunky gravel, looser terrain, or mud? 

It doesn't get much chunkier than this!

I was able to find a couple miles of really fresh, chunky gravel recently. I was very pleasantly surprised by how the Byway handled this surface. Generally speaking, one can expect any gravel tire to spit out a rock sideways on such loose gravel. I also was expecting to have to herd the front end over this loose gravel as the casing points to a tire with little float. But the Byway just rode straight on and no rock pinging was noted at all. Very impressive! 

I also have had the Byway in looser dirt, uneven terrain, and in mud. I was not all that impressed when things got sketchy. On the loose dirt, the Byway simply lacked any grip, which shouldn't be a surprise for a tire with basically a slick tread. The rounded profile, while not a negative for loose gravel, did not work in fine dirt or sand. Washing out was a real possibility there. Finally, and again - not unexpected - the Byway is not good at all in mud. No traction or lateral grip there. 

So if you keep the Byway to drier, more stable terrain, with the exception here being loose, chunky gravel, where the Byway surprised me, you should be okay. It is a great pavement tire or solid dirt road tire. The Byway wants to roll and roll and roll. The ride quality is quite good as well. 

But keep this tire off any deeper terrain, really loose, big rocks, moist earth, and mud. The lack of knobs is a liability there, and the rounded casing is doing the rider no favors at all either when the going gets sketchy.  

Find out more about the WTB Byway by clicking  HERE.

I'll be back soon with an update on the 700 x 52mm WTB Course