The thing I love about bikepacking is the sense of adventure, being able to explore the wilderness and get away from the busy roads. If you’ve got the right bikepacking tires for your trip then you can ride without worry or limits. If you’re unprepared and your tires can’t handle being off-road or are poor quality this can really limit your experiences. In previous articles we have covered the best gravel bike tires and puncture resistant tires. Today we are looking at what makes a good bikepacking tire and which one you should choose to make the most of your explorations.
Are you familiar with what to look for in bicycle tires? Do you know what tires will fit on your bike? We are going to cover the basics from what tires are made of, what sizing numbers mean, what to think about when considering a tire and then move on to my favourite bikepacking tire comparisons at the end. We are only looking at tubed tires in this article.
Welcome to your bicycle tire classroom.
Already a tire nerd?
Here are my top 5 best bikepacking tires, in my humble opinion.
- Schwalbe Marathon Mondial
- Continental RaceKing Protection
- Maxxis IKON
- Bontrager XR2
- Vittoria Mezcal
Anatomy of a tire
Let’s familiarise ourselves with the glossary of terms when looking at tires, we are going to focus on those with inner tubes in this article as they are most common. If we don’t understand them we are never going to be able to decipher what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’, or what will make your trip epic, or an epic fail.
Bicycle tires are largely made of rubber and sit over the metal rim of your wheel. Unless you have a special bike it most likely has a ‘clinched’ tire. This means that they come with an inner tube that needs air in it to keep the tire clinched onto the rim. Without the inner tubes’ air pressure it’s useless. Clinched tires have a rigid hooked rim to allow them to have a better seal and accept higher tube pressures. They are easy to change and have easy access to a valve for inflating or deflating the inner tube. If you are riding with puncture resistant tires you will have a thicker outer section often lined with a latex, Kevlar fibres or thicker rubber.
Then we need to think about what grip a tire has, this will depend on how thick or the distribution of the ‘lugs’. This is essentially the same as the ‘grip’. If they are big and widely spaced then they will be good in the mud, if they are small and close together then they will be better for speed. If the grip extends up the side of the tire you will have more grip into corners, get it?
What size is my tire?
This always used to confuse me! Just for this article, let’s assume you’re bikepacking on a mountain bike or touring bike rather than a road bike. Establish your tire diameter in inches: 29”, 27.5” or 26” are probably the most common. This is also, confusingly, depicted as 700c or 650b meaning 700mm or 650mm in diameter (the ‘c’ and ‘b’ is from an old French way of measuring, don’t worry about it). In general 700c fits 29” and 650b = 26”.
Then we need to think about what width you’re going to go for. A wider (or fatter) tire will give you more rolling resistance (less speed) but more grip. For me, on my usual single track off-road adventure I have 29” diameter width tires in the range of 2.25” to 2.5” wide (or 700c with 50-60mm width). I find this gives enough grip for the fun stuff and not too much rolling resistance that I’m panting on the roads. If you’re going on snow, sand or loose ground think about going plus size – fat in the 3” – 5” category, but make sure your bike has the clearance and rims for these, most don’t. Your skinny road bike rims cannot take plus size tires, they’ll fall off, and so will you! Read more about fat bikes here.
So, on the side of your tire you may see:
“29 x 2.25”
Meaning: 29 inches in diameter x 2.25 inches wide.
Or you may see:
“700c x 50”
Meaning: 700mm in diameter x 50mm wide.
Think of it as working in metric measurements (700c) or imperial measurements (29”).
Just to make matters more confusing (or simpler) there is the newer ISO or ETRTO measurement which can be found in the format “XX – XXX” or “XXX – XX” on the side of the tire and this is standardised between road and mountain bikes. Measuring more accurately in mm than the other numbers. The 3 digit number is the rim – rim diameter, and the 2 digit number is the approximate inflated width.
What makes a good bikepacking tire?
As with most things in the bikepacking world, there isn’t one answer. Bikepacking in it’s very nature involves more off-road than on-road and therefore having a wider, more durable and more grippy tire is necessary. Now, the difference will come when you look into your terrain. If you’re winter bikepacking with snow under your wheels then a plus size or fat tire with thick lugs will be your best friend. If you’re off on a gravel adventure a thinner tire with less rolling resistance might be what you need to get your speed up and that dust spraying. If you’re like me, and love a good woodland and single track undulating adventure then you’ll be looking in the mid ranges of mountain bike tire width with added durability for longer adventures with less focus on rolling resistance.
Puncture resistant tires
We have covered this topic previously and you can read in depth about it here (Codey please link to article), but we all know I am generally in the camp of having puncture resistant tires. If you can have peace of mind and not have to worry about something why should you? On paper they may slow you down slightly on the road and absorb slightly less bumps, but in reality you can’t tell, especially when your bike is packed up and you’re happily whizzing over roots and rocks without a care in the world. Most of the top end bikepacking and touring tires come with some level of puncture resistant technology these days.
Top 5 Bikepacking tires (clincher only)
Schwalbe Marathon Mondial
Made for long distance adventures over varied terrain scoring high in the bikepacking world for durability, off road grip and puncture resistance.
Continental RaceKing Protection
Made for long distance off road races. Known for being able to go and go with minimal puncture issues.
Maxxis IKON
Maxxis are the guys to look to when it comes to touring and bikepacking tires and the IKON is leading the way. A great all rounder thriving off-road.
Bontrager XR2
Servicing TREK bikes very well are the Bontrager team. They have a superior tubeless ready tire which is speedy on road and still fun off road.
Vittoria Mezcal
This specific tire has a layer of graphene protecting you from rocks and roots and the lugs are designed to still keep your speed on the flatter ground. This is a fast and fun tire.
| Tire | Price | Off road rating | On road rating | Puncture resistant | Durability | Lugs |
| Schwalbe Marathon Mondial | $56 | 4/5 | 3.5/5 | Yes(Certain models) | 5+/5 | Thick and medium spacing |
| Continental RaceKing | $52 | 5/5 | 4/5 | Yes(Reinforced sidewall) | 5/5 | Thick and wide spacing |
| Maxxis IKON | $70 | 5/5 | 3.5/5 | Yes(Tubeless ready) | 4.5/5 | Medium with wide spacing |
| Bontrager XR2 | $79 | 4/5 | 4/5 | Yes (Tubeless ready) | 4/5 | Medium and wide spacing |
| Vittoria Mezcal G+ | $75 | 3.5/5 | 4/5 | Yes(Graphene layer) | 4/5 | Medium and wide spacing |
I hope this article has given you a helpful education on all things bikepacking tires and has given you some confidence to go out and choose the tire that’s going to accelerate your adventuring.
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