The Best Road Tyres Right Now? | 2023 Road Gear Of The Year

BikeRadar’s expert testers have chosen their favourite road products from 2023.

There is what Warren believes is the perfect road wheelset. Jack is finally able to see, while Ash shows us the best tyres he’s ever used.

But what has been your favourite piece of road kit from this year? Let us know in the comments!

#cycling #bike #tech

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:25 Continental Grand Prix 5000 AS TR Tyre
01:50 Dynaplug Micro Pro Bicycle Tubeless Repair Kit
03:28 Vitus Nippy Superlight balance bike
04:52 Prescription Oakley Sunglasses
06:19 Castelli Alpha Ultimate Insulated Jacket
07:41 Black Inc Five Wheelset
09:29 Nopinz Pro-1 All Season Skinsuit

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2024 has been another fabulous year for cycling products but what do our team of experts rate as their favorite piece of Kit from the last 12 months we’re here with the best of the best so if you want to know what is really worth the money then stick around to find out let’s

Start with Ash last year I heaped praise on the pelli P0 race 4S Clincher Tire as being my all round Performance tire of choice of course things change I’m now far Morey Happ than I was to run a tub setup on my own bike and almost every Tire brand worth mentioning seems to have

Launched new rubber in 2023 the Continental Grand Prix 5000 ASR has emerged as my favorite of the bunch don’t get me wrong I would certainly prefer to fit a lighter faster tire for summer riding such as the GP 500 St Str schwabb Pro one tle Goodyear Eagle f1r

Or pelli P0 race tlr there’s a lot of choice however for the other say 75% of the time I think the as Str hits a blend of performance and protection others have yet to match when I ride this on my fairlight stail 3 with any given wheel

Set I can hardly feel the difference compared to an st Str of course weight is hardly the priority for my steel bike’s General application and it gives me n on the same confidence as the St when cornering Continental didn’t rip up the Str str’s construction blueprint

When it designed the ASR all it did was add an extra ply to the casing for increased puncture protection modify the compound to work better in the wet and make the tread slightly deeper also for increased grip none of these things are bad for the general Road cycling

Enthusiast in fact I’d argue they’re fundamentally good Tire choices we repeat often is very subjective and the development race moves inexorably on for what is a very consumable item but this for me is the current performance allseason standard Setter it’s an easy choice for me this

Year as this little thing has not only come along every single ride with me this year but it is also saved me from multiple tubeless puncture disasters this is the dino plug micro Pro bicycle tubeless repair kit and it’s packed full of all the essentials you’ll

Need to fix a tubis tire so why is it in my list well firstly it’s just really wellmade the container is Tiny yet bombproof has a weatherproof seal so it keeps everything inside nice and dry and the aluminum Machining is just beautiful quality right then let’s crack it open

You’ve got the tool five stain steel insertion tubes five soft no standard plugs a little micro knife and an air stopper and a pipe cleaner to help prep the tube for reloading which i’ never really used so how you use it is basically you load the insertion tube

With a plug secure it into the tool push it into the hole in the tire until the tube is well inside then as you pull it out the plug will in theory be left inside and half outside the tire you can then cut the plug which stick sticks out

With a little knife now I think it works better than the stands no tubes Dart in my experience I found the plugs are long and thick enough to get a reliable seal once you stabbed it in the photos here were on one of mine and Jack’s big Welsh

Rides and the only issue I had with this repair was not having enough sealant in my tire but I still got home just with a little less pressure than I’d hoped the plug isn’t enough on its own as the material of the plug works with the sealant to form a nice seal

My pick is the vus nippy super light balance bike that I bought for my son Freddy last Christmas The Joy it has brought him and I this year qualifies it for this list alone but I’ve also been impressed by its particular qualities now as promised it’s very light and

That’s useful as bike weight is critical for little people with limited strength and dexterity and while many balance bikes weigh around 3 to 5 kilos the vetus nippy super light weighs just 1.94 kilos including this lovely little Bell from the caflon that’s lighter than the frankly ridiculous specialized hotwalk carbon which costs

$999 or doar and is claimed to weigh 2.1 kilos now of course the vus frame is aluminium not carbon fiber and it has plastic instead of carbon wheels but it also costs just 45 quid and is available in a range of bright colors it has clearly been designed to appeal to kids

And not to adults with too much money to spend and an obsession with industrial design now it could undoubtedly be improved with pneumatic tires spoked wheels bearings instead of bushings in the headset and so on but it would cost a lot more if it had those things and

Ultimately it only really needs to do a basic job before we pass it on to the next kid to enjoy hopefully the skills that my boy Freddy has learned will pay dividends on a proper kids bike when the time comes my name is Jack Luke and I am an

Idiot despite the fact I wear spectacles every day 2023 was the first year I invested in a pair of prescription cycling glasses and I haven’t looked back it should come as no surprise that being able to see clearly on the bike has been a bit of a revelation it’s not

As though I was blindly grumbling along bike paths like a star noosed mole before but now I can see all of the pretty leaves in HD I retrofitted a pair of direct glaze Oakley lenses to my so fashionable frames and have been mostly satisfied with the combo the Optics

Themselves are excellent there’s no Distortion to speak of and they’re every bit as clear as my regular spectacles however the central corrected section is darker than the periphery of the lens which is a bit annoying in direct sunlight there’s also no denying they look a little bit dorky but it’s a price

I’m willing to pay for being able to see now before you tell me I should just use contacts I was long ago put off for Life by Grand fromage George Scott when he revealed that a contact lens had blown out of his eye while ripping down a road

Descent to that I say no thank you if you want to learn more about prescription cycling sunglasses check out our fool buyers guide on bik rar.com there’s a link to that in the video description Castelli’s Alpha Series jackets are more heavily insulated than its revered Peto range which replaced

The gabber making them ideal for deepest darkest winter targeting a wide temperature Spectrum from -5° C to 12° C the alpha ultimate ditches the gortex materials found on the alpha RS 2 which I also own highly rate and Alpha RS light two models a polartech Neo shell alter layer

Is instead paired with an integrated internal Alpha layer I used this jacket on pretty much every ride last winter and found it to be the rare performer that actually achieves the Holy Trinity of of being waterproof windproof and breathable it’s the first winter cycling jacket I ever owned where I don’t feel

Akin to the Tim man from The Wizard of Oz thanks to its low 371 G weight in a size large although Punchy at380 or $449.99 this jacket saves the need to invest in multiple layers I’m happy to wear this jacket pair of a short sleeve

Base layer down to about 4° c and a long sleeve variant for anything Arch judging by my castelli gabu or aformentioned Alpha rs2 jacket I’m confident the alpha ultimate will last for years to Come the fives from black Inc come with a proor price tag but because of the radical five-spoke design these are outlawed by the UCI which I secretly really like according to Black Inc the fives were never intended for racing what they set out to do was to create a

Set of wheels that had the aerodynamic advantage of a middepth set of aerrow wheels think the 58 mm deep zip 404 or mv’s sces 5.6 but with the weight of a lightweight climbing wheel set black in claims 1318 G for a pair of five wheels and when you add in the essentials of

Tubless tapes and valves my test set tip the scale at 6433 G for the front and 769.41 12.9 G it makes for an impressively light set of wheels compared to 50 to 60 mil deep aerrow whe Wheels now I must admit to being skeptical about the ride of the fives

Historically one piece Wheels like this have been a mixed bag from the harsh ride of the spins in the mid90s tri spokes to the flexible vagueness of the same ear as spinaches and plenty of long long forgotten alternatives on the road however I’m impressed the lack of mass

Is always going to count when you hit the hills but that’s not the only string to the fives bow the combination of low weight and impressive lateral rigidity gives the fiber reactive response pulsing forward with every pedal stroke perhaps where the five is impressed the most however is in windy conditions the

Shape simply shrugs off Crosswinds and buffer in better than the mid High Arrow Wheel sets they are destined to rival overall the fives offer something very different from the normal the looks will have a love or hate reaction but the performance I can’t argue with and to be

Honest I love how these look on my super 6 Eva it’s a wheel set that’s impressively fast responsive and superbly stable in poor conditions and that’s really all I want from a road wheel set The Limited cyc cross racing that I’ve done has all well mostly all featur the no pins All Season skin suit it is intended for use in the colder months for cyclocross road racing if you’re stupid enough and time trials if you’re really stupid the main body of the suit

Is ever so slightly thicker than a usual skin suit and it has a bit of a hydrophobic coating too this helps to retain a little bit of heat or just fend off a bit of rain but I have to say I wouldn’t call it warm or at all

Waterproof it is best layered with a technical long sleeve base layer for cold conditions and in the depths of winter I even used it with some leg warmers the long legs give excellent coverage while there are grippers at the hems of both legs and arms to keep

Everything in place a dense pad is thick at the front end to make on the river efforts a little more comfortable and the number pocket in the back means that no more pin holes in your nice new skin suit which is great it is comfy to stand

Up in making running sections of the course slightly less unbearable in fact if you ride for a club and they get their kit through no pins the custom option allows you to spec a shoulder pad for even comfier shouldering of the bike and that’s the thing about cycl us you

Just want to make it comfy so those are our top picks but what have you been using this year that you rate highly share it in the comments below if you like your Road Tech then we have a whole host of brilliant videos on the channel so make sure that you’re subscribed

Thanks for watching and we will see you next time maybe even next year