Touring tyres for Provence

[EddieH123]

Hi all,

A friend and I are doing a c.350 mile tour of Provence in June. We both have gravel bikes and have experience of long distance touring and bike packing. However neither of us have ever ridden Provence. The route we've planned on komoot is mostly road or cycleway, with only about 20 miles of gravel or unpaved roads. Has anyone here toured Provence and do you think we should ride fully slick or semi slick tyres? My current preference is 700c fully slicks, but would welcome comments based on other people's experiences of the region.

Cheers
Ed

 

[Sallar55]

32 SLICKS on your gravel bike should be fine, even for some RF track thro the forests.

 

[andrew_s]

Agreed - stick with road tyres like 32 mm Gatorskins or whatever.

Inappropriate tyres generally just slow you down, so if your 20 miles is unusually rough, road tyres may cost a couple of hours relative to something more suitable, which would be considerably less than what the more suitable tyres would cost in the other 330 miles.

 

[iluvmybike]

Defo slicks - the roads are very good

 

[Grant Fondo]

+1 on 32c Gatorskins. Had them on gravel bike for 2 years, no punctures even on quite rough terrain. Have a good trip

 

[Roseland triker]

Get round ones. 4 season jobbies

 

[8mph]

I fitted 25mm Marathons last time and cycled with a 6kg load on road and explored the gravel paths between Frejus and Cannes. The Marathons took some of the fun out of road climbs and weren't necessary for the gravel section, the surface was more like shallow pea gravel rather than sharp flints. The Michelin Endurance tyres I had on pre-tour would have been half the weight and coped fine.