The Latest MTB Trend Makes No Sense - So How Is It Winning Races?

There's a new trend in XC, and it makes absolutely no sense. Riders like Evie Richards, Christopher Blevins, and Viktor Koretsky are all doing it and using it to win races. But what is it? How does it work? Should you be trying it out too? What is this new trend? Well, at Noviomesto Short Track World Cup, Christopher Blevins and Viktor Koretsky finished first and second using 50-millimeter gravel tires rather than conventional XC tires. How does this work though? Both 29er and 700c wheels both have a bead seat of 622 millimeters, making them effectively the same size. At 50 millimeters wide, these measure up at about two inches, which wasn't too dissimilar to what we were running on our XC bikes a few years ago. This trend doesn't make a lot of sense though. It's been well-documented that wider mountain bike tires are faster in almost all conditions due to multiple factors such as reduced rolling resistance, increased grip, and better bump absorption. Rich did a video all about this, so if you want a deep dive on the subject, have a look back through the channel. In the Olympic cross-country discipline, 2.4-inch tires are pretty much the norm now. Pros are opting for much wider tires so they can run lower pressures for grip and therefore get away with running a faster rolling tread. If that's the case, why are numerous riders bucking the trend and opting for much narrower tires for short track? Well, short track courses are typically much smoother, faster, and less technical than Olympic distance XC courses. Tracks like Noviomesto even feature large sections of tarmac. A quick look at Christopher Blevin's Strava shows that he averaged upwards of 30 kilometers per hour at Noviomesto. On tracks where speeds are higher, a 50-millimeter gravel tire could offer big advantages. The gravel tire is much lighter than an XC tire with weight savings of around 100 grams per tire, which is massive in a race of tight margins. How good could they be for us normal riders, or is this another one of those trends that we should just leave to the pros? I've set up a mini short track test circuit with a bit of everything included, some fast corners, some hardpack straights, and a pretty punchy little climb, a pretty typical XCC circuit. I'm going to put the two tires up to the test to see which one's fastest. I'll do one on the XC tire and one on the gravel tire. The MTB tire I'm going to be using today is my XC race tire of choice, the Vittoria Mezcal in a 2.4-inch width. This version of the Mezcal uses Vittoria's XC race casing and is the perfect tire for mixed-terrain use. The tire in this configuration weighs in at 720 grams per tire. I'll be running my usual pressures in the XC tire of around 22 psi in the rear and 19 psi in the front. The gravel tire I've chosen today is Vittoria's Terreno T80 in 50 millimeters. The tire uses their endurance casing and is designed for coarse, loose conditions. Weighing in at 600 grams, it's a full 120 grams lighter than my XC tire, which should make a massive difference. I'll be running my gravel tires a little bit harder than my XC tires with around 27 psi in the rear and 25 psi in the front. I'm not running inserts in either wheel set and these are both identical Reynolds wheels, so they should perform exactly the same. Right, so that's a lot of talking from me. Let's show you the test and get into the track. Just doing a quick recce this time on the XC tires. Starting on this first descent, this is where I think the XC tires will make the main difference, having that extra volume because it's really dry out here in the woods, so I need all that grip I can get. This is where I think the gravel tires will feel a bit skitterish on this sort of stuff. This is actually my first time riding this bike today as well, so getting used to it a bit. See what this climb's like for the circuit. May as well be at Novo Mesto. Oh, look at this. This is where the gravel tires will start to feel quick. It's super smooth along here. Not that these feel slow. Right, I think I've got the circuit actually. It's quite similar to short track at least for me. Right, so you've had a look at the lap. I'm going to do the test on the mountain bike tires first and set a benchmark for the two, one. I think, although that wasn't very technical, the descents were really rough and quite high speed. I think although you might think the narrower tire is faster, having the extra tire volume probably really makes a difference as well as for the cornering grip and up the rough climb. Yes, I'm really interested to see how I'll get on with the 50-mil gravel tires, but my legs are shaking a bit now. I had to cut the lap a little bit short than I wanted just because there was a few people on the track, but to be honest, by the time we got to the end, I was ready for it to finish. On the mountain bike tire, I did 6 minutes 30 and I averaged 28k an hour. It's a really flat-out loop, a little bit less technical than I would have liked, but I think that's actually probably more similar to short track. I was quite surprised. I thought for this loop, a gravel tire would probably suit it more, but I think the speeds I'm going, having the extra tire volume is going to really help. Yes, that was absolutely flat-out, so I think I'm going to need a little bit of a break. We'll switch to the gravel tire and then we'll see how we get on. That just looks wrong, doesn't it? They didn't look that narrow off the bike, but when you see in there in the stanchions, it looks a bit disconcerting looking down a bit. We've put the gravel tires in the bike and initially, I thought it looked absolutely ridiculous, but it's been about 10, 15 minutes now and actually, they don't look that out of place. When I started racing XC, I was racing on 2-inch 2.1 tires and this really isn't that far off that. I don't think they'll handle terribly. I'm quite interested to see how we get on with them. Second effort done. I felt quick, but on the rougher stuff, I felt like I could really feel my wheel not tracking the ground very well. I'm going to go back to the cafe, grab a coffee, and have a look through the results. I've caught my breath after a lap on the gravel tires. To be honest, I was amazed by how good they felt. On the fire roads, they felt absolutely rapid. I think going uphill as well, that rotational weight being a bit lighter, they felt like they accelerated really quick. There was a section of fire road that was quite a bit chattery and more bumpy on these tires and I did notice that a bit, but overall, they did feel really good. It is worth noting that the track we were riding was really tame, but I tried to make it as close to a short track track as I could. The speed we were doing was about 28k an hour average over the two laps. It was a little bit slower than Christopher Blevins at 30, 31k an hour, but I'm not Christopher Blevins and I think that's close enough. As much as I would have liked to test them on something a bit more technical, I also wanted to test them at a speed close to what they use in short track World Cup. I'm going to have a quick dive into the results and then we'll see which ones came out on top because the feeling was that they felt really quick, but faster doesn't always translate into the better times. I've just had a look at the results on my Garmin and amazingly, we did it in exactly the same time on the gravel tires. A 6.30 again, 28k an hour average. They were pretty much neck and neck, exactly the same. I split the track up into three sections using the timing gates feature on my Garmin Edge MTB. Amazingly, the narrower gravel tire was a second faster on the fast fire road descent. On the actual Burmey descent, the mountain bike tires were a second faster. Then on the fire road climb, they were exactly the same. I think on the track we chose today, there really wasn't much in it. Do I think we should all switch to 50-millimeter gravel tires on our XC bikes? Obviously not. The 2.4-inch tire still has a time and a place for 90% of the mountain biking and XCO races we do. I think there are very few specific examples of where the gravel tire are much faster. I can see why a lot of pros switched to them for Novio Mesto and Leogang because on the fastest smoother rolling sections, you could really feel how much quicker the rotational weight and the tread pattern was. It does beg the question, if you aren't someone who rides gnarly new age XC riding and you do just ride flowy green and blue trails or around your local bridleways, do you really need a high-volume 2.4 tire or is 50 millimeters or something that's about two inches wide wide enough for you? Let me know what you guys think. Are you all convinced by the wider tire trend or some of you still running narrower tires? I'd be interested to hear what you think. Let me know in the comments. If you've enjoyed today's video, please give us a like and subscribe. I'll see you in the next one.