Tough road tyres for Autumn and Winter

We might have said it enough times that it's becoming a tired phrase here on Freewheel, but dont cheap out on your tyres. There's only one part of your bike designed to touch the floor, and it's those few millimetres of rubber that can make the difference between going round a corner in the wet or sliding across the road.

With that in mind, it makes sense to put a bit of thought into what tyres you're going to be riding through the winter. Well, that and the fact that you want to ride something durable enough that you wont spend half your ride huddled on the verge trying to fix yet another puncture.

Back in the day the idea that you could have a durable tyre that road well was a pipe dream, these days it's no only a reality but there are a whole bunch of different options to choose from. Here are some of the best autumn and winter tyres to make your ride ready for the bad weather. 

Continental Gatorskin

The Gatorskin is the gold standard for winter tyres. Nigh on unpuncturable, they’re tough, well-priced and the go-to for many cyclists throughout the colder and wetter months.

The key to the Gatorskin’s success is puncture protection, and a lot of it. It uses Conti’s Duraskin cut-resistant layer that runs from bead to bead – which means cut resistant sidewalls – and couples that with an extra-wide poly-X breaker belt that covers the whole tread for anything that makes its way through the rubber.

Conti also claim that the rolling resistance is pretty good, but let’s be honest, rolling resistance shouldn’t be top of your list when it comes to choosing a winter tyre.

The only downside with the Gatorskins is that because they’re so tough they can be a challenge to mount on some rims, meaning if you do puncture it might not be the quickest change ever. But then again you shouldn’t puncture much – if at all – with these, so it’s swings and roundabouts.

Vittoria Corsa Control 2.0 & Corsa Control TLR 2.0

Sitting firmly at the fancier end for winter tyres is Vittoria’s wonderful Corsa Control. Coming in either standard clincher – which has a tan wall version – or an all-black tubeless ready edition, they’re a hardier version of Vittoria’s incredibly popular Corsa tyre and match high performance with sturdiness.

The compound is Vittoria’s 4C, which means that four different compounds have been used in the tread for increased wear and longer life as well as better grip on the sides – ideal for riding in wet weather. That increased side grip is the main difference between the Corsa Control and the Corsa as there isn’t any side wall protection here so while they’re definitely more durable they’re not in the hardcore tyre category by any means.

But the TLR (tubeless ready) version is a definite plus. Doing away with tubes in the winter means no pinch punctures and if you’re running some decent sealant then you may even make it home before you’ve even noticed a puncture. If the worst does happen, you can just grab your Dynaplug, plug that hole and get back riding super quickly.

Continental GP 4-Season

Conti describe the GP 4-season as ‘the perfect all-weather performance tyre’ and it’s pretty hard to argue with that.

Using their MaxGrip Silca tread compound, the ride quality is remarkable for such a well-protected tyre, and the compound is designed to work in wet weather, which makes them perfect for the UK. Instead of all-over DuraSkin protection like the Gatorskins, the 4-season uses the DuraSkin layer in the sidewalls, and combines that with a Double Vectran breaker belt under the tread.

These are still some very well protected tyres, just with a performance focus rather than pure puncture resistance. That makes them perfect for any road rider that wants a tyre that rides well in bad weather but still wont leave you changing a flat every few miles.

Maxxis Re-Fuse

The most popular training tyre Maxxis make, the Re-Fuse comes in the three standard 23, 25 and 28mm widths, but also in a massive 40mm version for anyone who has the clearance to go for comfort on their winter bike.

Protection comes courtesy of Maxxis’s own Maxxshield (yep, they all have names). That’s basically a layer of SilkShield that runs from bead to bead with a second Aramid layer for good measure.  

Vittoria Zaffiro Pro

It’s fair to say that historically Vittoria’s Zaffiro tyres have rather unfairly had a bad rap for their performance. But that’s well and truly in the past now, as Vittoria’s entry-level road training tyres have had a complete overhaul.

Using the same Graphene 2.0 compound as the top tyres in Vittoria’s range, the Zaffiro Pro has a folding bead (as opposed to the ridged bead of the Zaffiro) making it more supple and offering a better ride feel than ever before.

They also feature an additional puncture resistance belt under the centre of the tread, and pack it all into a 240g package which is impressively light for a training tyre. The mixed tread design has grooves at the centre of the tyre and texture on the shoulders, aimed towards proving excellent grip even when the weather’s at its worst.