Of course, the simple answer to this question is that the best road bike tire for your bike depends on what type of riding you will be doing. Racing? Training? Touring?
But for the sake of this conversation we are going to narrow the focus to just typical road bike training–and even touring. But not racing. Because racing is an entirely different animal.
When you’ve owned & ridden–and bought & sold–as many bikes I have, you’ve also bought a LOT of tires (and a lot of tubes)… and changed a LOT of flats!
The LAST thing ANY rider wants to get while out riding–whether solo or on a group ride–is a flat tire. Aside from a crash or an unexpected downpour, a flat tire is about the biggest buzz kill any rider can have. But–until you’ve put a lot of miles on a bike–and have had a few flats / blown a few tires–it’s often something that you don’t really think much about.
If you ride a bicycle on the road, flat tires are inevitable. And certainly sometimes “flatting out” is simply dumb luck. (Riding through a patch of broken glass on the road… slamming into a set of irregular railroad tracks… hitting a giant, sharp-edged pot hole.) But the reality is that your choice of TIRES can have a HUGE impact on the number of flats you do or don’t have when you ride. Because some tires are simply BETTER than other tires.
For the newbie / uninformed rider, a tire is a tire and a tube is a tube–and they should ALL pretty much do the same job adequately and equivalently. But nothing could be farther from the truth.
The good news is that there are a LOT of tire choices out there for the average / amateur cyclist. And you don’t have to spend a fortune to roll on some really good rubber.
And, as with anything else, REVIEWS are an excellent way to determine the quality of a tire. The best single source that I have ever found for tire reviews is the RoadBikeReview.com website… where you can sort the reviews by tire name / make / model, by average rating, by the total number of reviews, and by average reported price:
These are USER / consumer reviews… not professional / bike magazine reviews… so I find them to be a bit more democratic. And, of course, we all know that you can never satisfy everyone–no matter how good your product is… and that someone who had a bad experience is WAY more likely to go online and write a negative review than someone who had a positive experience. (How many positive reviews have YOU written in your lifetime? )
In my opinion, the more total reviews–positive or negative–that a tire has received, the more likely that average rating is to be accurate and reliable going forward. (For example, if a tire has a 5 out of 5 star rating… but has only been reviewed by five users… that has less weight to me than a tire that has a 4.25 out of 5 star rating–but has has 200+ reviews.)
Amazon.com is another excellent source of tire reviews… and a great place to buy tires (and tubes) at a reasonable price as well.
And it is not surprising that the BEST tires… the mostly highly RATED tires… are often the most EXPENSIVE tires. (I mean, that makes a lot of sense, right? “Cheap” tires should be inexpensive and quality tires should be more expensive… because it should cost more to design and manufacture a better tire than it does to manufacture an average or below average tire.)
In my personal experience–and, not surprisingly, based on the average reviews as well–Continental makes some of–if not THE best–road bike tires available today.
Specifically, the Continental Ultra Gatorskin tire–which is not only the most frequently reviewed tire on the RoadBikeReview.com site–but highest average review of the top 50 most reviewed tires:
RoadBikeReview.com – Continental Tires
The Continental Grand Prix tires are right below the Gatorskins–both in total # of reviews and average rating.
But–unless you just got lucky when you bought the bike–or you are a seasoned / experienced rider–you probably don’t have either of those tires on your bike right now. And one of the reasons why might be PRICE… because these tires are not on the cheap end of the spectrum at +/- $50 to $60 per tire.
However, when you consider things like the LIFESPAN of the tire (total number of miles you can ride on that tire before having to replace it)… and the cost of replacing tubes more often with other tires–a more expensive tire often ends up costing you LESS over time than a cheap tire. AND… a better tire is less likely to leave you stranded on the side of the road–miles from home.
On Amazon.com ratings, the Continentals also do VERY well… taking FIVE out of the TOP 10 spots for best overall / average reviewed for 700c tires:
Amazon.com Continental Bike Tires
Therefore, according the hundreds and hundreds of actual users–over a period of several years–you can’t go wrong with a good pair of Conti Gatorskins or Grand Prix 4000 series tires. Not only should you get very high mileage out of the tires… you should also have minimal flats over time as well… meaning fewer tube changes and less time standing on these side of the road instead of riding. 🙂
(Update: If you are looking for even MORE flat protection, you might consider the Gator Hardshell tire–also from Continental… which runs about $50 a pop (pun intended) on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Continental-Gator-Hardshell-DuraSkin-Folding/dp/B00BCUSYQ4
I recommend going with 25mm tire width of your frame / wheels / brake calipers will allow it… 28mm if you are more of a casual / occasional / endurance / touring rider than a boy racer.)
Why? Read more about it here:
https://houston-bike-exchange.com/700x25mm-700x23mm-tires/