#panaracer

Panaracer Gravelking Limited Edition 2022 !

Panaracer présente la série limitée de ses pneus Gravelking en deux couleurs pour cette année : Ginger-Brown et Astra Blue-Brown Comme chaque année, Panaracer propose des versions en Édition Limitée de ses pneus gravel Gravelking. Les chapes sont soit Ginger-Brown soit Astra Bleu-Brown et les flancs toujours Brown. Les diverses enveloppes couvrent toutes les situations d’usage : route, temps sec…

COURSE REPORT - PANARACER

The DAMn is just two weeks out and we love hearing from everyone who is getting out there, riding, and preparing themselves for whatever The Day Across Minnesota throws at us! We rode the entire DAMn 240 and DOUBLE DAMn 480+ routes a few weeks back and have written up this short course report for y’all.

July 10th, 2021 - The gravel roads throughout the western part of the state was softer than usual. We noted that the few minimum maintenance roads in Yellow Medicine county were actually in faster/better shape than the maintained gravel roads. This was due to new gravel being distributed and many of the roads being graded. It’s been a dry year for us in Minnesota, so there will be no water crossing this year unless we get hit with flash flooding the day before The DAMn. There wasn’t a ton of washboard as we ventured east, however, it’s out there so stay loose and stay frosty. The single track section after Henderson is gonna be an adventure...especially for y’all choosing to run skinny tires...and the miles after that have seen some new silty / sandy river rock graded into the roads so surfaces were soft there as well. On the flip side, the Dakota and Rice county gravel was full on hero status, so you should enjoy that unless crews have opted to change the game on us last minute. The hilly Goodhue county roads before we cross the river into Wisconsin are a mix of hero and freshly graded so take it easy cornering on those descents. Double DAMn 480+ racers...read the above in reverse if you wanna know how the roads on your return trip are gonna look. Ask us “What width of a tire should I run for the DAMn?” and we will ask you back “How wide can you go?”. 

The Panaracer GravelKing is the official tire of The Day Across Minnesota, a tire that we firmly believe will serve our racers well as they traverse the varying Minnesota gravel from Yellow Medicine to Goodhue county...and back again. We look to the 43x700c GravelKing SK for its ride everything tread and extra puncture protection. We rode these during our pre-ride and experienced ZERO punctures. We love that Panaracer offers these tires in sizes ranging from 700x32c to 700x50c. There are 650b and 26″ options as well. 

Our friends at Panaracer have done something extra special and donated some tires to give away at check-in!!! However, before you get to Gary, we highly recommend that you install some new rubber to minimize chances of flats. You may also want to consider running tubeless...Panaracer has a tubeless sealant offering called Seal Smart. Thank you Panaracer for making the official tire of The DAMn!

So Miley and I recently rode through the latest milestone and hit 3,200KM (2000 miles) since I took ownership of her at the end of January.

She came equipped with Panaracer GravelKing Slick+ tyres which I was new to, so I thought I would keep tabs on how they wear over time and provide my thoughts on their performance.

This set is the 700x32mm variety and they are sitting on a Fulcrum Racing 500 wheelset running inner tubes (I haven't made the switch to tubeless although this setup would support a tubeless setup).

Here's the bike for reference. It's a Reilly Spectre Titanium which is Reilly's "All Road" frameset, and in this case coupled with Ultegra Di2 groupset.

So far (and tempting fate again) I have had no punctures and the tyres seem to be holding up extremely well on the fairly atricous road surfaces.

The front tyre has visibly more tread and apart from the odd little nick in the tyre, and the dirt, looks fairly new still. There's LOADS of life left in it.

The rear tyre is, as you'd expect because it's carrying more weight, showing slightly more signs of wear on the tread, and there are a few more nicks on this tyre, but nothing that would constitute a worry.

Overall I remain very impressed with the tyres. They remain fast rolling, grippy and do give me confidence even when it's wet.