Following a recent wind tunnel test that revealed differences in aerodynamic drag between major superbikes, wheels, and helmets, the Cycling News technical team returned to the lab again, this time to test road tires. The team brought 24 pairs of performance tires to the Pedaling Efficiency Lab at the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub to see which road bike tires were the fastest.

The tires tested were, in alphabetical order:

Each tire was tested at two speeds and repeated for consistency.

In addition to general racing tires, including all tires used on the World Tour, time trial tires, all-season tires, and intermediate class tires were also selected. The effect of tire pressure on rolling resistance was also investigated, and a single tire was thoroughly checked from 90 psi to 30 psi. Finally, the tubeless setup was compared to butyl inner tubes, latex inner tubes, and TPU tubes to determine how much resistance was added to each system.

With such a large data set created, it was possible to determine not only which tires were faster than others, but also more general trends. Does price correlate with performance? Are cotton-case tires faster? Are cheaper tires always slower than higher-end ones?” and ‘Do TT tires actually go faster?’

The answers to these questions can only be found in the articles, but the results show that both Continental and Vittoria tires performed well. The fastest overall tire was Vittoria's Corsa Pro Speed, while the GP5000S TR was the best performing tire for general racing and, interestingly, performed nearly as well as the GP5000 TT TR, a TT tire.

The performance difference between the fastest and slowest tires was significant, with the extremes as much as 30 watts, but this is a comparison between time trial tires and all-season tires, and not a fair comparison.

Most interestingly, tires used in the World Tour and Grand Tours were penalized by 22 watts at race speed.

The tests also showed that changing tire pressure over a relatively wide range had no tangible effect on performance, but changing the inner tube material alone gained or lost about 8 watts.

The faster you ride, the greater the aerodynamic benefit, but the performance difference between the two World Tour-level tires was more than 20 watts, which is equivalent to two-thirds of the difference between switching from an entry-level nonaero bike to a modern superbike. Tires are a fairly inexpensive upgrade and should probably be crossed off the list before switching to a new bike.

Cyclingnews will conduct further tests in the future.