German mega tyre behemoth Continental offers its gravity mountain bike tyres in dozens of options and has more flavours of slick road tyres than a Baskin Robbins. But, for gravel, the range is refreshingly simple—a quartet of options, two use the same tread pattern with a different casing.
We’ve previously looked at the Terra Trail, but in search of something a bit faster, Conti has sent out a pair of the Terra Speed bike shoes for us to get acquainted with.
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Based around the ProTection casing borrowed from the brand’s XC tyres, the Terra Speed uses a three-ply 180 TPI fabric topped in the brand’s Black Chilli rubber compound. These tyres also carry the E-25 emblem on the hot patch. This only means that they have undergone an additional testing protocol and are rated to handle the increased weight and torque of an e-MTB capable of dishing out assistance to 25kph. In reality, there is no difference between these tyres and those that did not previously see this stamp on the sidewall.
Available in 700c and 650b diameters, they come in every width you may desire as long as it’s 40mm. Inflated to 32psi, they measured bang on 40mm straight out the box, and after 24 hours, when the casing had time to relax at the widest point, they were 41.23mm across, mounted to a rim with a 25mm internal width. They tipped our scales at 426g.
Like its toothier sibling, these tyres see hexagonal lugs that become larger and drift farther apart as you move from the centre towards the edge. Side by side with the Terra Trail, the lug placement is more or less identical, but each knob is less pronounced. However, the Terra Speed has significantly more siping through the middle and transition knobs.
Conti has managed to pack a fair few knobs onto this tyre, however they shed mud significantly better than looks would suggest.
Continental tyres are notoriously tight at the bead, but they went onto our Shimano RX880 carbon wheels without too much fuss, and I did not have to fire up the air compressor to pop the beads into place.
While I do love the look of a tan wall tyre, these aren’t actually tan walls. The light hue of the sidewall is painted on, and you can see where the German outfit has coloured outside the lines.
Continental Terra Speed Ride impressions
The Terra Speed most definitely seem to spin along faster than their sharper sibling the Terra Trail. This really should not come as a surprise given the smaller, tightly packed lugs and lighter weight.
It took a handful of rides for the casing to break in, and once they did, the Terra Speed became significantly more supple. They don’t offer the floaty ride feel of something like Challenge Getaway tyre with a gooey soft sidewall, but the ride quality is still plenty supple.
For a tyre with such small knobbies, the Terra Speeds offered impressive cornering traction on surfaces ranging from sand to hard-packed dirt. In most of the conditions I’ve found so far around South East Queensland, they are fast and predictable.
Where they struggled, unsurprisingly, was on loose over hardpack surfaces where the knobs definitely are not long enough to punch through.
It was on these surfaces that the Terra Speed lacked braking in traction and under power. Once the gradient of a climb went north of 11-12% the back wheel would begin to break loose, and you’d have to keep your butt firmly planted on the saddle. Even still, when they would break loose, it was never a surprise.
Put simply, for most of the terrain that you’d undertake on a 40c tyre, the Terra Speed shouldn’t hold you back.
I’ve only been riding these tyres for about two months, so it’s way too early to make any comments on their durability, but so far, they are free from any cuts or tears and are not sporting any tyre plugs.
While it’s common for mountain bikers to run a gripper tyre up front, this practice is not as common in gravel — yet. Having the Terra Speed and Terra Trail on hand, I do plan experiments and see what effect running the gripper tyres on the front will have on ride feel — stay tuned, folks.
