New ENVE SES road tires wrap fast wheels with ‘real world fast’ tubeless road tires!

Written by Cory Benson Aug 06, 2020 12:31 p.m. ET

ENVE SES road tires, lightweight aerodynamic aero road tubeless real-world race performance tires

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After a decade of ENVE SES – some of the world’s fastest aero road wheels – the Utah wheel maker said it’s time to finish off your rolling stock with equally fast rubber – enter the new ENVE SES road tires. Enve calls them “real world fast” balancing aero & rolling resistance performance with a tubeless construction that will stand up to real-world riding conditions and in sizes you actually want to ride – from 25mm up to 31mm…

ENVE SES road tires: lightweight road tubeless & real-world usability

Enve’s 10 years of aero product development has centered on building wheels. But at the same time their wider than the norm SES wheels and variable rim depths have put a key focus on real-world performance and usability, over simply whatever is fastest in the wind tunnel. Now their new SES road tires follow the same approach. The most lightest, most supple, most ‘wind tunnel aero’ tire might be great, and could even eke out a free Watt for you on race day. But it usually isn’t up to the day-to-day abuse of regular road riding.

So, Enve decided to create their own tires for “everyday race performance”. But being a wheel maker, they didn’t start from scratch, instead working with proven Czech tire maker Tufo for the new made-in-Europe ENVE SES Road Tires.

Starting with a modern tire shape designed to smoothly transition to their modern SES aero wheels, the new SES road tires were developed and proven to be fast in both CFD simulation and the wind tunnel.

But they are said to go a step further with more real-world usability.

SES tires – Tech details

First, that means universal compatibility. The Enve SES road tires are tubeless-ready, but use a bead that will work with either hooked or hookless tubeless wheels – that also means they are clincher-friendly too.

Then, they use a performance-oriented casing construction & tread design that were developed for any road surface. A big part of that is prioritizing class-leading puncture resistance with Vectran barriers under the tread…

While still delivering on a balanced approach to both rolling resistance & light weight. Enve says they got that balance of all-weather performance and low rolling resistance with a natural & synthetic rubber blend, infused with activated silica for the wet-weather performance element.

Lastly, they come in four widths from narrow to road fat – 25mm, 27mm, 29mm & 31mm – so you can pick the tire that best fits your rim inner width and the type of roads you ride.

The result Enve claims are “modern tubeless-ready road racing tires that promise real-world speed” out riding real roads – lightweight, aerodynamic, fast-rolling, puncture-resistant & tubeless.

ENVE SES Road Tires – Pricing & availability

All of the different SES Road Tires sell for $75, available in black or tan walls and the four sizes. The tires all conform to new ETRTO size guidelines and are compatible with 17mm and wider inner rim widths.

The 25c tire has a claimed weight of 255g (optimized for 19-21mm internal), 27c at 265g (19-23mm internal), 29c at 275g (best with 21-25mm internal), and 31c at 285g (ideal for 21-25mm internal rims).

Availability varies with size and sidewall color. Some are already available, shipping within the next week, while other combos will have you waiting until October or even December to roll on the fattest…

ENVE.com

Cory Benson

4,153 articles

Cory Benson is the EU Tech Editor of Bikerumor.com.

Cory has been writing about mountain bikes, enduro, cyclocross, all-road, gravel bikes & bikepacking for over 25 years, even before the industry created some of these names. Prior to Bikerumor, Cory was a practicing Architect specializing in environmental sustainability, has designed bike shops & bike components, and worked as a bike shop mechanic.

Based in the Czech Republic for 15+ years, he is a technical mountain biker, adventurous gravel rider, and short & medium-haul bikepacker. Cory travels extensively across Europe riding bikes, meeting with key European product developers, industry experts & tastemakers for an in-depth review of what’s new, and what’s coming next.

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JBT

3 years ago

This is a serious question, not a troll, looking at Enve’s own data why wouldn’t the Continental 5000 be the better choice? The 5000’s are more aero, have better rolling resistance, are significantly less expensive, but weigh slightly more. Is the advantage of the Enve’s that they weigh less and have theoretically better puncture resistance?

TomM

3 years ago

Reply to JBT

I second your excellent question. I suppose if you own Enve hookless rims which cannot run Conti 5000 TLRs, then maybe these new Enve tires rise on the consideration list. But after reading this information, and since I don’t own hookless road rims, I’ll stick with the Contis unless other differentiating features come to light.

Jake Pantone

3 years ago

Reply to JBT

Tom & JBT,

Fair question. We obviously aren’t trying to hide or doctor the data in anyway that gives the perception that our new SES Road Tires are the best at every comparable metric. What we are saying is that our new tires are on par with the best aero tire on the market (less than a watt difference in the example shared of the ENVE 29 and GP5000 28 which the later is slightly smaller). Our 27 which we haven’t published data for will be faster in the aero category as it is smaller. Aero is one metric. Rolling resistance is another and essentially a function of weight and puncture resistance. The best/fastest rolling tires are generally lighter (not the case with the GP5000) and consequently more easily flatted. We are also offering this tire in 4 sizes to help people fine tune their tire to their needs. But the big reason to buy this tire over other tubeless road tires is it’s more refined tubeless compatibility/performance that puts less compressive stress on the rim and is not overly challenging to install. Also, as JBT noted, our tires are compatible with hookless/straight sidewall rims. In summary, the main goal of this development was to create tires that are specifically designed to compliment our SES & SES AR rim shapes while striking a unique balance between all these performance metrics.

Jeff Langford

2 years ago

Reply to JBT

Regarding GP5000, I have had tremendous problems mounting those to tubeless rims that don’t have an adequately deep center well mostly due to the very large bead that Conti has on that tire. Also, as stated above, they are not compatible with hookless rims. Additionally while they roll super fast I’ve had more real world flats on my Conti’s than on my ENVE SES tires so for me, I’ve found the tradeoffs ENVE made in their SES road tire to be the right ones.

Larry Falk

3 years ago

I like the trend of tire manufactures offering sizes between 25mm and 28mm because I am one of those people that have a good road bike that won’t take 28s, but 25s are still smaller than I want to ride on. I’d also like to see someone install these new tires on a variety of ENVE rims and ideally also on other manufactures rims. Ease of installation is my number one criteria.

tech9

3 years ago

@jbt – Beyond the point about the 5000 only being able to be run on hooked rims (which these days are becoming a huge minority in the wheel world). There’s the real world issue that TLR 5000’s are damn near impossible to get on and off a rim on the side of the road. Or heck even in a shop they are damn near impossible.. They are such a PITA that we don’t even carry the tubeless version any more. I’ve been on more than 1 stranded on the side of the road rescue over riders that have flatted on TLR 5000’s to the point that a plug or sealant didn’t work. This required a tube, and with how tight the TLR 5000’s are it was impossible for the normal fred to get the tire off to put a tube in and back on. Even as a mechanic, with 150psi air pressure and the best tire levers in the business it’s a serious struggle. Looking forward to trying these enve tires as soon as they get in stock at qbp.

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Zach Overholt

3 years ago

Reply to tech9

Interesting. What size tires and rims have you been mounting them to? Your experience is completely opposite to mine – maybe the 28mm size that I’m using is easier? I mounted 700c x 28mm GP 5000 TLs to Zipp 303 Firecrest rims, they went on super easy by hand, come off super easy by hand. When I took them off recently after a full season, there were a few cuts that had sealed that I didn’t know about, and there were many tiny pieces of glass embedded in the rubber that never worked their way through. Never lost enough air while on a ride that it was noticeable. Overall, I was very happy with their performance, but limited sample size with one rider on one set of wheels.

Steven S.

3 years ago

Reply to Zach Overholt

Zach, Same here. I mounted a set of GP 5000TL on my 303’s with no problems. Put some Stan’s in and hand pumped them up.

skyride

3 years ago

Reply to tech9

first time i’m hearing about issues mounting the 5000s. i have both the regular and tl versions in 28mm with zero issues on a set of dt swiss wheels. love this tire.

Ish

3 years ago

Reply to skyride

I bought a pair of 25s to mount to my Pacenti SL23. It was so tight I was afaird I may damage the bead or something while mounting them so I just returned them. I left them warm up in the sun and used soap and I think I could have forced them on, but the amount of force was scaring me so I called it.

tech9

3 years ago

@zach overholt Your experience is definitely better than most. Just google gp5000 “hard to mount”. Even competing bikes shops in our area stopped carrying the tubeless 5000 because of consumer complaints. We’ve had issues mounting to all sorts of rims (stans, fulcrum, roval (yes we know, no bead hook), hunt, giant, reynolds, etc). Really stinks because I personally always loved the 4k’s back when I rode clincher/tubes. Most cases of tight fit have been 28’s.. We mostly sell 28’s in our shop these days.

hopefully more options will be available with tires soon. The pro ones were nice, but the new ones are heavier than the previous and do not have near the volume. just about 40g heavier per tire and the 28’s that used to blow up to 31 on most rims now blow up to at best 29mm on a 21mm inner rim.

Jörg Hippo Thomsen

3 years ago

IMHO “real world fast” ist just a marketing term for: We designed a new tire and we cannot figure out, why its aerodynmaic performance is so much worse than the competition.

Tufo is not really known for it’s “magnifecent” rubber compounds nor high end carcasses either…and the asking price of 75 € a piece seems just ridiculously high.

IF you want real world fast go for a Wolfpack or a Conti.

Ish

3 years ago

Reply to Jörg Hippo Thomsen

Haha yeah when I read “real-world fast” I read that as “tested bad”

DSK

3 years ago

Disclaimer: I am not supported by ENVE. I got SES TL Tires on my own before retail release so they were a work a in progress still.

I have a set of SES 700x25c TL on my SES 2.2 and had GP5000 TL 700x25c. I have done a real world test with both tires. I have found that the difference is so little between the two brands when it comes to rolling resistance when they are at the same PSI or higher (80psi). This dramatically changes with lower PSI for SES TL, rolling resistance increases a lot more than GP5000 TL. Weigh, is not that important to me, so I’m going to skip that. As for having better puncture resistance. Yes when new but the tread/outer surface wears quite quickly. 2k and the they are almost done, lots of little holes where the sealant is coming out. I do ride in a lot city conditions which is not that suitable for SES TL tires. On the open road, they are just as good as GP5000 TL with the right PSI.

We need to keep in mind that most claims by all companies have a margin of error and can differ from real and different riding conditions.

In the end I do believe that ENVE is off to a good start with improvements to come after more costumer feedback.

Thats my 2C.