Best road bike tyres 2023 — ride faster and further with fewer punctures

The Continental Grand Prix 5000 is a hugely popular road tyre, and rightly so. It uses the BlackChilli compound, a Vectran Breaker puncture protection layer and three layers of 110tpi casing for a tyre that pretty much does everything well.

Take these out in the dry and traction is great, but more impressive is the wet weather grip. As far as rolling speed is concerned, they feel proper fast and this is backed up by strong results in independent testing. Bicycle Rolling Resistance's results show the GP5000 non-tubeless is not only significantly faster than the old GP4000S II, but nearly as quick as the Grand Prix TT all-out race tyre.

The cool thing about the GP5000 is that you get close to proper race tyre performance with training tyre longevity. If you aren't bothered about tubeless compatibility, this is one of the fastest, grippiest tyres you can fit. 

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As an endurance tyre designed for big miles, you can expect the Hutchinson Challenger to be the gift that just keeps on giving; however it is surprisingly supple, offering great handling in wet and dry conditions, and it rolls along pretty well too. 

The Challenger is a firm favourite in the world of ultra-endurance riding, and with a claimed lifespan of 5,000 miles (8,000km), it's easy to see why. Often brands will use harder rubber compounds to make a tyre last longer at the sacrifice of grip and ride quality, but the Challenger uses a bi-compound rubber. This is harder for the narrow central section yet softer on either side of that, so you are kind of getting the best of both worlds. This is all particularly impressive given the price.

The Challengers are standard clinchers available in 25mm, 28mm and 30mm widths, but rumour has it there is a tubeless version on the way in 2023. Overall, for the money at the recommended retail price, we don't think you can beat them. They offer a great ride feel and durability, so if you want a quick tyre that'll also last the distance they make a sound choice.

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Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres are essentially heavy-duty, ultra-reliable commuter/touring tyres that inspire unprecedented confidence without feeling sluggish or barge-like, as the 970g weight for a pair would imply. If swerving punctures is your main criterion in a commuting tyre (and let's face it, who wants to fix a flat on the roadside on a wet January morning?) the Marathon Plus is the tyre to go for.

Much of this is attributable to the Smart Guard system. This is essentially a clever sub-section of supple rubber designed to force sharps out, rather than drawing them in as deep-treaded tyres can. These roll along nicely and are still the first choice for many of our staff.

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Unlike the name suggests, the GravelKing isn't actually a 'gravel' tyre as such, but it does excel in any kind of on-road/bad-road scenario. It's light, rolls along very well regardless of the terrain and is available in a large range of widths.  

Puncture protection is pretty solid, despite lacking the ProTite protection of the slightly more expensive 'Plus' version. The ZSG (Zero Slip Grip) natural compound offers low rolling resistance and low wear characteristics. A 35mm version weighs in at 309g per tyre, which isn't half bad. Our reviewer said that these tyres "will handle practically anything you can throw at them on road."

Our final verdict sums up these tyres well: "The ideal tyre for rough roads – very fast, very light and yet robust."

It's no wonder that they made it into road.cc Recommends!

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The Corsa Control is Vittoria's tyre for wet weather, and we found it was very good at it! The easy tubeless setup, sizes up to 30mm, supple 320tpi casing and seemingly robust rubber compound mean that these are also ideal tyres for rubbish UK roads.

The Control uses Vittoria's 4C Graphine compound which, as always, provided very good comfort levels on the roughly surfaced local roads while not suffering from the usual sluggishness of all-weather tyres. Cornering grip is in abundance and the tyres feel surefooted when the rain comes.

The thicker tread and addition of the 'K-reinforced' casing means that we found the Corsa Control tyres pretty resistant to cuts and punctures. If you're looking for a plush ride, confidence in the rain and a robust compound without switching to something much wider, then we think the Vittoria Corsa Control TLR G2.0 is easy to recommend.