A lot of you reading this were among the 7 out of 10 Slowtwitchers who routinely chose Continental as their race tire of choice. But you’re taking a hard look now at the new Vittoria Corsa Pro, aren’t you? And the as-yet unreleased Corsa Pro Speed that we saw on Jonas Vingegaard’s Cervelo P5? This new generation of cotton tubeless tires has gotten Vittoria “tired of all the winning.” Vittoria has arrived as a tire with which you must reckon, but Goodyear may be an equally compelling option.
I believe the tire landscape is changing for 2 reasons. First, the change to tubeless and new ETRTO standards meant all the brands and factories had to make tires to different standards and to perform in larger sizes. This created a rare opportunity for an industrywide do-over. The edge Continental had – in price, aerodynamics, availability and compound – has been somewhat neutralized. Second, I believe certain brands realized that any tire win is a big win if it happens in a big race. If that big win is in a bike race earning that win costs a couple of orders of magnitude less than in an auto race, but that win still generates auto tire sales. I’m just guessing, but I think Pirelli and Goodyear looked at what Continental was doing and thought it a pretty slick idea. (We see both brands investing big in bike tires now, especially Pirelli.)
Goodyear belongs to that same category of tire maker that includes Continental, Pirelli, Maxxis, Michelin and Kenda. All these brands make bike tires but not exclusively. In fact, bike tires are a tiny fraction of their businesses. This means these brands might not have the singular focus you see from Schwalbe, Vittoria, Veloflex and the like. On the other hand, they have huge resources should they choose to leverage them against bike tires. And, they seem to me to have the ability to engineer compounds. Hence the emphasis on that feature from these brands. Goodyear’s bike tires is not a sectioned-off part of a car tire factory, but a US-based company building tires in a Taiwan factory built specifically for this project.
The tire you’ll be most interested in is the race-oriented Eagle F1 Supersport R. I ride this tire in its 28mm version because I’m done riding anything smaller than that size for any cycling specialty, for any use. But I only have data on this tire in its 25mm size, and I have that same data (as you do) for the Continental Grand Prix 5000 S TR 25, which has been the state of the industry for the past year for fast-rolling, roadworthy road race tires. These two tires are within the margin of error of rolling equally fast on the Bicycle Rolling Resistance drum tester, 9.1 versus 9.4 watts (both at 100psi).
The total puncture scores on these tires is close, the Conti getting the slight edge scoring 36 to Goodyear’s 33 (more on this below). The virtues of Goodyear’s (new this year) Dynamic:UHP compound are both low rolling resistance and wet grip. Goodyear wins pretty handily in total wet grip, scoring 81 compared to Conti’s 66. The Eagle F1 Supersport R is about 15g lighter than the Grand Prix 5000 S TR in the 25mm size, 235g to 250g.
About this tire’s puncture resistance. BRR has this rated at a 33, which sits between the Grand Prix 5000 TT TR and the Grand Prix 5000 S TR. If I place myself in your shoes I might ask, “If I’m willing to ride a tire with a rating of 33, why not take a chance on a tire that rates a 31 and gives me an extra watt or two?” And that tire would be the faster-rolling 5000 TT TR and indeed, I saw a lot of pros riding this tire in the IRONMAN in Kona last October (Including at least 3 of the first 5 men’s finishers, Iden, Blummenfelt and Skipper). The score does not comport with what I see in the field. Arguably America’s premier continental race team over the past decade has been Human Powered Health Cycling. What I hear from those close to the team, and see in photos of the team during races, is that this is not just a TT tire but the tire the team uses for road racing. Human Powered Health has both mens (Continental) and womens (World Tour) teams; mostly racing in Europe, including spring classics. The men have taken longer to move from tubulars to this tire (for various reasons, some technical). The women dove right in and have had no regrets. For example, the women’s team had no flats teamwide during Paris Roubaix, where some women chose this tire and some the sturdy Eagle F1 R (the tire they train on). According to the team, "the women have used the SuperSport almost exclusively [for road and TT] since late spring." The Eagle F1 Supersport R was used by the women during all the road stages throughout this year’s Tour de France Femme, and the team experienced no flats. That’s 6 riders x 8 stages, north of 28,000 flat-free miles racing full gas on this tire (almost exclusively in the 28mm size). "Our SuperSport R tests about the same for tread puncture as most of the competitors road race tires and better than their TT tires," says the team owner, who notes that part of BRR's total puncture score is tread thickness and the "SuperSport is a pretty thin tire so that artificially keeps the score down." The Eagle F1 Supersport R is a 9-watt road race tire, not a 7-watt paper-thin TT tire.
And then there’s the price. This is not how Continental got its market share 10 or 15 years ago, but it’s a big reason it's kept it in the meantime. Other tires would present a legitimate challenge to Continental but a premium was charged for a premium tire. Let's first look at MSRPs, then we'll look at street prices.
Conti GP5000 S TR: US$ 103.00
Vittoria Corsa Pro TLR: US$ 99.99
Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport R TLR: US$ 80.00
That Corsa Pro is holding to MSRP. The GP5000 S TR appears available circa $60 if you keep your ear to the tracks. The Eagle F1 Supersport R is available, like the Conti, between mid-$50s and low-$60s online.
Further, once I move to 28mm – which is the smallest tire I’ll ride – I find it harder to get a big discount on the Grand Prix 5000 S TR; I’m more likely to have to pay around $80. On the Goodyear the price remains about what I'd pay for the 25mm size.
I find that Goodyear tires (this one and the sturdy Eagle F1 R) are a good match on several tubeless wheelsets, but a great match on all my Zipp tubeless wheels with hookless beads. In the same way that CADEX tires mate extremely well with CADEX wheels – precise fitment the key – that’s what seems to be going on with Goodyear and Zipp. By fitment I mean: they hold a seal even before you put sealant in the wheels; there is no bubbling between rim and tire where sealant, once installed, tries to escape; the tire mounts and dismounts with no fuss. The Goodyear tire exhibits the no-leakdown behavior you find in a vulcanized tubeless tire with perfect fitment. I have a set of Zipp 808 Firecrest wheels that haven’t been pumped up for months yet that Goodyear F1 R tires mounted on them still hold a good deal of pressure. The same is true when I mount Goodyear tires on Zipp 404 Firecrests.
For this reason Goodyear’s Eagle F1 Supersport R is a better match than the Grand Prix 5000 S TR for my application, on the wheels I ride. (Perhaps if I was riding a DT Swiss or some other wheel I wouldn’t feel this way.) Only very slightly slower than the Eagle F1 Supersport R is the new Vittoria Corsa Pro at 9.9w in the 28mm size, but it’s got a very robust puncture rating of 46 and there’s really only a couple of recent ETRTO-compliant tubeless tires under 10w with that kind of puncture resistance (this is the tire ridden by the Paris Roubaix men's winner this year). But… that’s a $100 tire. And – again – I’m not sure the Eagle F1 Supersport R isn’t in practice about equal in flat resistance to the Corsa Pro.
I guess with our industry’s recent tire reset, and tires tending to be more like 28mm (or larger), tubeless, many ridden on wheels with hookless beads, it’s a new day. Vittoria, Veloflex, Challenge, Schwalbe, Michelin, Pirelli have all staked legitimate claims. As has Goodyear.
