Question about Gatorskins (Page 2)

This is purely anecodotal (I can't claim 3 mph gained and have absolutely ZERO evidence to back up my claims) but I prefer the feel of my Vredestein Fortezza to the Gatorskins and feel like I'm faster on the Fortezza.  True, I change more flats.  That's the price I pay for the comfort and what, I believe, is more speed from the bike.

More questions,  I understand that there would be a time improvement between racing tires and gatorskins but what about  between gator skins and the stock tires that came on my bike (specialized Dolce)? That's what I just changed from.

I have ridden Gatorskins for the last 5 years and have put over 15000 miles on two different sets and have had one flat with them. I use different tires for racing especially on more technical courses. However, the claims on here about 1-3mph different are very ill founded to say the least. You might save .25 mph, but even that may be more than actual.

I have not tested Gatorskins (nor has Al Morrision) but if we assume that they perform as poorly as the worst clincher tires on his list, that would mean that the power required to overcome rolling resistance is about 24W per tire.  Compare that to the best clincher, Specialized Mondo Open Tubular at 11.5W per tire and you can save 25W by switching.

A rough guide is that 5W is equal to .5s/km saved at race effort so this would be a savings of 2.5s/km.  For most riders this won't be a 1-3mph difference but may well be in the .5-.75mph range.

Shane

This is an interesting discussion.  For me as a BOPer I wonder how much of a difference it would make in my performance.  At an avg speed of somewhere around 17-17.3 mph on flat terrain I can't see jumping to 18+mph just because of changing out the tires.  At this point in the season I now have the gatorskins on and will stick with them for my A race next weekend.  I may do another race in October, and if I do I may look into trying race tires for race day then.  Otherwise I may experiment with gatorskins for training and race tires for races next year to see if I do notice any difference.