Choosing your tread for cyclocross tubulars

The most common question I get asked about 'cross tubs, at races, in emails and on twitter is....

What's a good all-rounder tread to get?

Or a derivative thereof.

It's a good question - most people asking it are just starting off with tubulars, or only wanting to invest a modest amount and are therefore looking for one wheelset, on one bike to cover all conditions.

Unfortunately, it's a bit like the question 'how long is a piece of string?'. There are so many variables to take into account - rider style, weather, soil type, frequency of use and so on. However, I've tried to put together a handy guide to get you thinking about how to choose your first or sole pair of tubulars, with a few recommendations to start you off. You will doubtless pick holes in my reasoning, find exceptions, struggle in snow and want a clincher alternative to boot. You're probably right on all counts but life is too short to cover it all.... unless you want to buy me a pint and make your pitch.

Rider style:

Mountainbike background? Roadie? BMXer? The higher your confidence in your bike handling skills, the less critical the choice is in many ways. I'm not the best bike handler so make up for it by getting tread choice and tire pressure absolutely right for the conditions. In really slick conditions, I've been outridden by better bike handlers on a less than optimal tread choice ie their only choice, but at least stacking the odds in my favour keeps me moving forward. If you are not blessed with ninja skills then err on the side of a more mud oriented tread as you will struggle less in the mud than you will lose in the dry.

Climate:

I always laugh at London-based 'crossers. No, not because they are in London (well a little bit) but because they seem to be using general tread choices long after we North-West riders have switched to mud treads. Last year, in the NW of England, we started on muds and that's how it stayed all season. Most of the recent seasons have been like that too. Even in Summer Cross, us Northerners are using muds most of the time. If where you live is not the rainfall capital of the country then perhaps a more general tread is the best one-shot choice. If you live in NW England, then just get muds and be done with it, for all year use.

Soil type:

I have a twitter acquaintance (@philipglowinski) that studies geological maps of new race venues to get clues about the likely soil type. Most people would probably scoff but I'm a bit geeky too and thought that was brilliant. Either way, the point is soil type can make a big difference even given the same rainfall as on a differing type elsewhere. Case in point, Sutton Park, much loved as a classic venue for National Champs, was usually pretty fast and dry given the sandy soil. Heavy rain rarely turned it into a complete mudbath, unlike Peel Park, Bradford which only requires a light sprinkling to become pretty tasty for the mud lovers. South East soil types tend to be different to NW soil types to South West soil types etc etc Check yours out - is it essentially a faster drying soil type, or more loamy, or clay based. It'll give a starting point at least.

How often are you racing?

Most treads wear reasonably well these days, but more aggressive treads do by definition wear more when used on frequently on harder surfaces. Thus your mud tread specials might look a bit worse for wear if you blast around on hardpack surfaces a lot in between the odd mud race. Worth thinking about as tubs of any description are not cheap these days.

So what do I rate?

Predominantly muddy races/NW England/Yorks - FMB SuperMud or Dugast Rhino

You won't go far wrong with a mud tread like FMB SuperMud. Designed as a direct competitor to the imperious Dugast Rhino, I've written about them here, and rate them as better all round than the Rhino which is still pretty damn good. They work well in drier conditions too as they are not quite as aggressive. Comprehensively pre-sealed and double stitched by Francois at FMB, they will last you a few seasons too if looked after.

FMB SuperMud

Dugast Rhino

Recently a lot of folks have been impressed with the Challenge Limus - it has a great tread, a good supple casing and seems to shed well. Perhaps struggles a bit in quicker conditions due to the aggressive tractor style tread but nonetheless a good choice and more available than exotica from FMB or Dugast.

Challenge Limus

Alternatives worth looking for - Clement PDX (super aggressive tread). Vittoria XM (robust, reasonably agressive tread)

Intermediate conditions - not too many mudbaths, drier soil types

The benchmark for years has been between Dugast Typhoon and Challenge Grifo. Both great, both proven. But... there are new interlopers in the scrap.

FMBs SSC is similarly styled to the above, in terms of tread but the knobs are a little taller and a little more aggressive - like a Rhino on the edges. Therefore, it handles muddier conditions just that little better whilst still rolling fast in the dry. I've used them and really rated them.

FMB SSC

The new kid on the block is the Dugast Small Bird - my test pair are about to arrive so I can't yet say what they are like, but the idea is sound with them being essentially a revamped Rhino style tread, busier like a 'small block 8' type mtb tread for the dry, lower central knobs with a harder compound in the centre and softer more aggressive side knobs. Best of both worlds job hopefully and they could maybe be the ultimate one-job tread.

Dugast Small Bird

Alternatives worth looking for - Schwalbe Racing Ralph (light, supple casing, bit low on volume in the casing), Gommitalia Magnum (see Grifo), Vittoria Evo XG (robust, bit sketchy in mud), Challenge Fango

Summer Cross

If you live in the North West or Yorkshire - see mud tires.

For those elsewhere, FMB Sprints are pretty awesome in the dry, AND pretty awesome in light mud too. With a surprising amount of grip from the stipples, the really aggressive side knobs keep you upright in most light mud conditions, and even on greasy, rain-slick, previously sun-baked grass. Just.

FMB Sprint

Alternatives - Challenge Grifo XS (more an out and out dry tire than the Sprints)

Everybody has their own favourite, their own opinion. Feel free to take me to task in the comments below and add your bit. I have ridden most of the treads outlined above but not all and there are some out there that I haven't mentioned that are worth a look too.

Gruff but friendly Nottingham importer John Holmes does great prices on Dugast tubulars as well as FMB - mention my name when you call him on 07946 461972.

Fangoso should soon also be able to hook you up with some FMBs.

Going Dutch - an immersion in cycling culture

A family holiday to the north of the Netherlands, to a city where the per capita use of bikes is allegedly the highest in the world, seemed like a good excuse to load the car with the full compliment of family bikes and go Dutch style..

Our base, at friends, was in Groningen, not too far from the German border and in a traditional part of the Netherlands. Got a stereotype image for Holland? We ticked them all, apart from tulips.

It is flat, eye openingly flat. It is windy, constantly so. The people are tall, the girls often blond. Everywhere is neat, straight, criss-crossed with canals and there are definitely windmills.

And then there are the bikes. They are simply everywhere and used by everybody. Riding out early on a Monday morning into the countryside from our hosts, I came to the first major bike path on the local A road and ran into what can only be described as multiple 'flotillas' of cyclists. Mostly college/school students with some commuters, they rode in groups, 4 or 5 long and two abreast. Chatting, laughing, texting, one handed. Like a clubrun of experienced riders, but with bags, panniers, casual clothes and a complete mastery of their mode of transport. For someone used to riding into work and seeing the odd grizzled fluoro-jacketed factory worker returning from a night-shift or dragging himself into work, it truly was an eye opener indeed.

Later in the trip I participated in the two-wheeled school run for our host's kids - to find that the rest of the (primary) school arrived on bikes too, leading to the largest collection of two-wheeled transport I have ever seen in one place. For one school.

Shopping, as well as the school run was accomplished on the 'bakfiets' - a two wheeled box big enough for 4 kids bolted to a normal Dutch bike. Heavy but surprisingly manoueverable, I had fun loading up with a selection of mine and borrowed kids and going beer, I mean essentials, shopping with ease.

I asked our hosts if the numbers and usage diminished in winter or in bad weather, and I got a slightly quizzical look which answered my question. People have well-suited bikes, clothing to match and an attitude of stoicism when it comes to the weather.

This was in evidence on the 2 family Sunday ride we did to a local village and cafe where 15km into a brisk headwind didn't phase the Dutch half, even if it presented problems with cold hands for my littlest. They just got on with it, warmed up with hot chocolate and blasted back home after.

My own training rides were unique in flavour - headwinds there are steady but not depressing and assuming you plan well, the returning tailwind is a thing of pure animal satisfaction. I hadn't ridden that fast on the flat since the last group crit race I had done. The wind is ever present and during winter I am sure can become nearly untenable, but it is constant rather than gusting and therefore allied with the flat terrain, allows you to chose a gear and effort to suit, and just get into the groove. More pleasingly, I rode for mile after mile, or rather km after km, on purpose built bike paths, usually on BOTH sides of a road, often with 2 lanes on the path itself and with utter deference and respect from the motorists whom I came into contact with. I hadn't realised how relaxing riding at speed could be, without traffic and surface hazards to sharpen the senses. The roads in that region, and the rest of the country I believe, are in incredibly good condition. In the Groningen region at least, revenue from natural gas reserves are used to keep them in such good condition. I saw one pothole in the whole trip, on the motorway near Amsterdam.

I expect that flatness would grate after a while, and certainly it was a pleasant surprise to come back to East Lancashire's vertiginous terrain but it is truly a wonderful place to immerse yourself in cycling culture in the widest sense. They don't do proper cobbles though, which was a shame...

Playing out in Lee Quarry

Me and Mark, our 2 boys and a pump track...

Anatomy of a 'cross race

I once tried riding a cyclocross race 'easy'. It was a lesson in abject failure. Lulled into a false sense of security of how it would be a pleasant training ride, by the time I found myself on the deck for the third time, I realised that there was no such thing as an 'easy' 'cross race. An easy 'cross ride perhaps, but when you throw a hundred or so fellow riders, a slick muddy course and a way too casual attitude together, you get a mix that guarantees incompetence and ineptitude. 'Cross requires focus and commitment and makes very specific physical and mental demands, regardless of your ability or experience

And so to the musing I was doing recently as the new (summer) 'cross season started. That's the thing - nowadays you can race 'cross for pretty much 9 months of the year, morphing from (usually) fast and dry summer 'crosses into biblically wet and muddy winter races with only the deranged 3 Peaks Cyclocross in September to confuse the issue.

Some have written about the physical demands of cross, but what does it actually feel like to race, and what does it tell you about yourself?

Whilst I don't buy into that whole 'pain cave' thing where people try to outdo superlatives about how hard it is, there is no doubting that 'cross is hard, physical and to be honest slightly unsettling to take part in. The start is not necessarily always the hardest bit physically but is always demanding in some way - get a clean start off the line and you will be riding close to your maximum physical and technical ability anyway as you try and capitalise on your position. Get a rubbish start and things get harder. You'll still be riding pretty much full gas but mentally things just got a whole lot more difficult. Some of the fiercest battles in 'cross races occur back from the front end of the field, in the mid pack as, in the growing fields we've seen over the last few years, legions of grizzled competitors fight for every corner, every scrap of rideable line.

A bad start can finish you if you're not careful. In your effort to claw back places you try too hard, go into a sketchy corner too fast or over-accelerate on a straight and overshoot when the course turns and before you know it you've lost another 5 places. Let your mind wander or panic and things can go from bad to worse. Calmness whilst all about you are losing their heads is the key to the game. Easier said than done.

Survive the melee of the start and you try and settle in a bit. I say settle in, as far as maintaining a lung bursting effort, staying upright round the course and avoiding marauding fellow competitors conveys a notion of 'comfort'... Either move up if you can, usually by being smoother and more efficient, or hold your station. If you start sliding back, once again things can get more difficult as panic can set in. Panic usually means mistakes which, like casualness means an encounter with flora and fauna around the course (including course tape) or intimate contact with the ground.

And so to the finale. Hopefully a triumphant gallop around the last couple of laps, in control and looking imperious. Alternatively, it may well be an undignified fight against dwindling physical resources, increasing technical ineptitude as fatigue fogs your reactions and sometimes a fight against a madly clogging bike that threatens to give up working at any moment. As I have been blessed with riding a pair of 'anti-clog' Planet X disc bikes, I can no longer use this excuse and am left with my own ineptitude as the likely cause of backwards progress at this point.

The end of a 'cross race is always a bitter sweet affair - the relief that the physical pain you've just been though is no longer there is strong, but tempered with the knowledge that somehow you've got to get your (almost guaranteed) filthy body and bike(s) back into or onto the car and home again in a vaguely presentable state to greet loved ones who doubtless will be waiting with bated breathe to see how you got on.

Pic: Joolze Dymond

But that's where we come back to summer 'cross - all the trials and tribulations of winter 'cross but without the muck. Mostly.

30 days of biking - mid term update

It was going well, this 30 days of biking lark. At least for 11 days anyway...

Struck down with a bladder infection I had to have 9 days out but have returned to the fold, rejuvenated and ready to showcase more gems from my South Pennines location. Here is a selection of earlier images.... 8 days to go.

30 days of biking

The month of April sees '30 days of biking'. 

In it's 4th year now, 30 days has one rule - bike somewhere every day for 30 days. Aournd the block, 20 miles to work, whatever suits you - then share your adventures online.

I like this - it doesn't have the macho feel of a Strava 'I'm riding 4000 miles in 2 weeks' challenge, nor the slightly sad 'Ride as much as Nameless Pro' challenge. No, it's about getting out, however long or short the ride is and for me celebrating my local area (and maybe a couple of non-local areas) along the way.


I've joined up with some like minded souls to celebrate our South Pennines area and our daily rides, pics and thoughts can be found here - 30 days of biking South Pennines.

Enjoy the ride.

RVOL cancelled

Somewhat unsurprisingly, this weekend's Ronde van Oost Lancashire is cancelled.

The route crosses some high ground badly affected by the weekend's snowfall and subsequent drifting, as well as some lanes that are still pretty impassable to cars, or more precisely road bikes.

Temperatures between now and Saturday morning will struggle to rise above freezing in these areas meaning thaw is unlikely, and the risk of ice very high. Additionally, the legendary SportSunday cake stall relies on the good will and favour of David and Laura and their friends and family, and I for one don't expect them to stand out in those temperatures for a few hours to feed us all. David and Laura kindly went out today (Tuesday) to bring us a status report and these pics.

It's unlikely to change much over the week, and I for one am not prepared to risk things.
The Ronde is a social ride, not a challenge event and as such the route is open to those intrepid or daft enough to try it at any point, but you do so at your own risk and in your own time. Alternatively, spend some time with your loved ones eating chocolate and hiding Easter eggs.

Hopefully, we can all meet and ride at a later date in the year, when things have warmed up somewhat.

Alan