Panaracer GravelKing Slick Folding Gravel Tires

Great quality and long lasting.

Here's the short version first... These tires are great. Several reviewers said they had difficulty installing them, that they fit tightly. I didn't have that problem. I was able to get them seated with no difficulty or struggle using my fingers only. In fact, they went on easier than most tires I've used (25 years biking experience). I'm running them with tubes on a 2018 Specialized Diverge.Here's the longer version...I've been biking since the late 1980s, both road bikes and mountain bikes, but mostly road. Anyhow, the conventional wisdom for bike tires for most of my life has been that narrower, higher pressure, harder tires ran the most efficiently. I took a few years off from biking when I had kids and came back only to find out that wider tires are now a thing, that a wider lower pressure tire actually has less rolling resistance than a narrow tire. Could this be true?I bought a gravel/adventure because I only have room for one bike and I wanted a do-it-all machine, but I hesitated to put on wide tires. For over a year I rode it with its stock 30mm tires. Anyhow, after much research, and reading hipster bike blogs, I finally decided to pull the trigger on these Panaracer Gravel King tires and bought a set of 38mm tires.OMG! These thick tires are the greatest thing I have ever come across in my biking life. From the moment I first rolled out of my driveway my bike felt completely transformed. They are just as fast as my narrower tires but the bike is so much more lively and smooth riding.I live in the middle of Portland, Oregon, bike city USA. My riding is a mix of urban, countryside, and trail. These tires make all of it more fun. After riding narrow tires for so long I had taken for granted the twitchy, nervous nature of riding road tires. With the fatty gravel kings I burn through the rough stuff without a thought. For the first few rides it felt like magic. Something as basic as making a high speed left turn, the looking over the shoulder and cutting between traffic, is so much more confident on a wide tire.I got the slicks but they're still pretty good off road. I took them up a dirt trail with 16% grade and there was no slipping.

For the price, I wasn't sure of what I was getting in terms of quality and performance. I took my first ride on May 24, 2023, after installing the tires. I could even feel the weight difference. I don't know if it was a form of placebo impact or just the nature of the tires; it felt faster than I had ever ridden the Canyon Grail AL. In fact, one of the reasons I put the bike on the back burner was due to how sluggish the bike felt. The bike has truly been transformed to a much faster bike. Not much of the comfort has been changed from when I had much larger tires. As of yesterday, I have ridden the tires of a wide range of surfaces. This bike is the one! The tires look nice, feel nice, and seem not to get in the way of my aggressive fast style of cycling. I believe the set is durable. My accelerations feel faster! My cornering remains as deep and aggressive as ever. My top unassisted speed was clocked at about 31 miles per hour during the first ride. I own a CAAD 12, Specialized Allez Sprint, along with my Grail. The Grail has become my most enjoyable and capable bike.

I’m impressed with this tire. It rolls fast on pavement, & does quite well on the very large gravel 11/8 “ roads for transporting oil in western Colorado.I’m riding a road bike that I’ve hybridized into a decent 80-20 gravel bike. It should do better on most dirt gravel roads that I will encounter soon enough.The tires don’t even look like I’ve done 8-10 rides. That’s good for me because I’m not a huge fan of tire tube changes. I put the 700x26’s on my bike butShould have gone with the 28’s. I didn’t listen to the review, They are smaller than the # 700x26 is closer to a 25. Take theses tires out, unroll them & put in sunOr warm up a bit. The 1st install is a little strenuous on the fingers. The 2nd was like butter. I know because I kept moving from one set of wheels to the other.

These are fantastic tires. I recently purchased a new [to me] bike that came with 23c summer tires, but after skidding around a few times during my daily commute - over random stray rocks, dirt clods from landscaping trucks driving across the bike path, loose gravel, sprinkler run-off , and road-side trash - I decided to just change my tires now. I feel so much more stable, the extra few mms provide a much smoother ride, and I am experiencing way less skidding. I have also gone over some nasty small rocks, random pieces of metal, and even a AA battery with no issues whatsoever! I've been riding 3-5 miles on them daily for three months now and see no signs of wear yet.Everyone is right though: These tire are TIGHT to get on and off. I snapped a tire level trying to get these off of my last set of wheels (wasn't using any lubricant - my fault for trying too hard) so either get some lube or just fork over $10 for a shop to do it for you.