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Review: WTB Horizon refines the limits of fun on the road (plus)

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If you would have told me a couple of years ago that I was going to ever run almost 2″ wide tires and 650b wheels on a road bike of my own volition, I would have promptly laughed it off. And I’m already a proponent of never riding anything smaller than a 28mm road tire. Sure, there were rumblings around the Cannondale Slate that made waves when it was debuted with its fat road tires, but it was probably the arrival last spring of these supple, grippy Horizon tires from WTB that have made the Road Plus standard actually viable with a high quality, high performance tire for all types of road surfaces. We’ve been riding the Horizons through the fall, winter & into the spring and can comfortably say that we are now believers…

photo by Max Burgess

First to get it out of the way, we aren’t going to ditch fast rolling narrow or even aerodynamic tires for their own correct applications. For fast riding on smooth tarmac a more narrow tire is hard to beat. And after some time last week in the wind tunnel, we’ve seen some interesting results of how much of a difference he correct tire can have in either getting the most out of a deep section wheel or losing the benefit altogether.

But in the meantime from our EU HQ in Prague, we do a lot of mixed surface asphalt, cobblestone, gravel & dirt road riding that really benefits a wider tire that you can run at low pressures for both added comfort and the extra grip of a large & wide contact patch. That’s where the Horizon shines, and where we’ve been putting it through its paces over the last half year – from daily commutes to bikepacking adventures, and everything in between.

Tech Details

We first got a preview and went into the details of the Horizon last February when it was launched.  The Horizon is a lightweight folding casing tire in a 47c width for 650b wheels. Ours measured up dead on at 47mm true to size, mounted to a set of 3T Discus Plus alloy wheels with a 24.5mm internal rim width. The tires use a dual compound tread with a smooth center section and a more grippy rubber for the fine chevrons that make up the shoulders.

 

The natural rubber sidewall Horizon gets a TCS casing that means it is tubeless compatible, but needs to be run with sealant. We rode the tires both with middleweight tubes and with Stan’s sealant installed. WTB has a cheaper, heavier non-tubeless wire-bead version of the tire. But after setting these up tubeless and with such an improvement in ride we wouldn’t be likely to even give those a try.

WTB claims a weight of 515g, with our set coming in just a tad heavier at 520g after having seen a little time in the dirt. The Horizon retails for $68 and has recently been joined by a sibling with the exact same construction (and pricing) called the Byway that just adds shoulder knobs for more riding off-road in loose conditions.

Riding Impressions

So what swayed us about riding these tires? To be fair we are kind happy to ride any good quality wide road tire in the dirt, and most do surprisingly well. Coming from a mountain bike background, a bit of good bike handling goes a long way and drifting slick tires through turns can be a blast as long as it is expected. But what first really sold me personally on these tires was their unexpected grip riding through the winter. I had been commuting through snow & ice on the Exploro above (yeah, I know that is a nutso commuter; different story, coming soon) riding daily over an ice covered spiral ramp here in Prague without a care in the world. Then a warm(ish) rainy day made me pull out my commuter with full fenders and 28mm tires that I have always been happy with. I almost crashed twice on the way to work, trying to guess what was going wrong. Same thing happened on the ride home, so I grabbed the Horizon-equipped Exploro and gave it another go. No problems. The low pressure, wide contact patch, and subtle tread just hooked up on the icy path littered with bits of gravel/grit that the wide 700c road tire didn’t even come close to sticking to.

Sure that really only applied to a very specific condition, but it clued me into how much extra grip these tires had been hiding. Since that winter I have transitioned the same grip in loose over hardpack performance to a number of other surfaces – loose gravel roads, dirt roads with the occasional loose bits, and unexpected washed out sand & gravel in asphalt corners. Every time the Horizons have offered more grip than expected.

Our other testers here backed me up on the idea centered around the ability to run the Horizons at crazy low pressures without tubes. On 25mm road tires at 100psi it is hard to quantifiably perceive the difference of going tubeless or not. Sure, the lab data show clear reductions in rolling resistance and if you pay close attention riding the same routes back to back, with and without tubes you can feel it. But here with Road Plus it truly is a whole other world. With tubes you aren’t going to make it very long at 25-30psi without a rash of pinch flats, but with the Horizons set up tubeless we spent months at those low pressure without incident, even over 500km of loaded bikepack touring over hill and gravel dale. Tubeless road is simply better for this type of riding off the beaten track.

The 47mm Horizons are very much a mountain biker’s road tire, no surprise coming from an off-road focused company like WTB. If like us you are the type of rider who gets back from road rides covered in mud, or just feels the need to ride off on any dirt or gravel track that you pass, the 650 Road Plus concept has some merit. While previous tires like the once that came stock on the Slate were underwhelming to us, the supple WTB casing has seemed to offer a just right balance of low pressure grip and rough road comfort that has held up so far to our gravel road and dirt trail abuse. And it’s been convincing enough that we’ll keep looking for a chance to stick Road Plus 650b tires into whatever frames we have that will fit them. We’ll look forward to getting the Byways dirty too.

WTB.com

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24 Comments
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Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
7 years ago

Wasn’t this tire released……. last year?

BR just won the Lanterne Rouge category for tire reviews.

mudrock
mudrock
7 years ago

Like he says in the review, they were riding the tires since last fall. Long term reviews are valuable, don’t you think?

Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
7 years ago
Reply to  mudrock

Long term reviews were complete and written up or blogged even before BR started their test. Nobody is talking about the Horizon anymore except when being referenced in a Byway review. The timing of this is funny to me. Let me have that at least.

Gravelly
Gravelly
7 years ago

You’re a lot of fun aren’t you? I’ve just bought a 650b wheel set and found this review extremely interesting even though the tyres have been on the market for over a year!

Jp
Jp
7 years ago

Long before the wtb horizon was the Compass Switchback Hill… more supple, lighter, faster.

Volsung
Volsung
7 years ago
Reply to  Jp

Switchback Hills weren’t released much earlier than the Horizons. They’re much better, but I suffered permanent hearing loss setting up a Snoqualmie Pass tubeless, so I’m done with them.

Ed Ng
Ed Ng
7 years ago
Reply to  Jp

I’ve read that they’re also pretty puncture-prone because they’re so thin (not personal experience). I HAVE put over 1,000 miles into a pair of Horizons and have not had a single puncture, and the tires still look like they haven’t even been used from a wear standpoint.

-Ed

Jon
Jon
7 years ago
Reply to  Ed Ng

Not sure about the Compass but the Pari-Motos could be 3 flates per 100 miles. Horizons,1 so far all winter.

Ed Ng
Ed Ng
7 years ago
Reply to  Jp

By puncture-prone, I mean the Compasses.

Grmtylr
Grmtylr
7 years ago
Reply to  Jp

Problem is I’ve never found a Compass tyre that’ll run tubeless!

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
7 years ago

Lol. That there aero gravel bike is making all the difference, I’m sure.

Volsung
Volsung
7 years ago

When the Gravelking 650b x 48s come out, these will be dead in the water.

lop
lop
7 years ago
Reply to  Volsung

650bx48 Gravel King don’t appear to be tubeless compatible. Currently, the SK version is, in one 700c size. Maybe it’ll trickle down, but frankly, Panaracer really does not understand modern tubeless, and they will need to invest a lot of time and money to figure it out. Customer demand has lead to Jan Heine tepidly pushing them towards more rapid development, but they’re set up like an old Italian tire maker, not a hyper-modern Taiwanese company like Innova (manufacturer of WTB tires), who can change on a dime.

Anyway, WTB is a huge and popular brand with great stock levels at all the major distributors, excellent social media, and wide distribution. I see no evidence that a POTENTIALLY comparable Panaracer product will slow them down one bit.

Tim Tim
6 years ago
Reply to  Volsung

well the GK is out in pretty much any size a person wants, plus it even has an SK (short knob) version.
However based on my experience with the Bronson, Exiwolf, and Nano. Here I am looking at the WTB Horizon. why? I want to go tubeless. and I trust WTB tires!! sometimes reliability is best.
Well I could run a compass Switchback hill, but I’m done with tubes, I’m done with steel, I’m done with square taper. I’m done with 32 spoke J-bend wheels, I never did the strap a spare 400 gram tire under my 500 gram leather saddle and I never will.

Puma Pete
Puma Pete
7 years ago

I don’t understand the 650b gravel bike fad going on. If companies are going to devolve to smaller wheels for straight line performance, why not 26″ x 2.0 then? Compared to 29″, your almost there.

Looking forward to WTB making this tread pattern in a 700/29″ as it looks like a winner for efficiency and speed for dry dirt roads.

Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
7 years ago
Reply to  Puma Pete

26″ is fine for pedestrian pace gravel, not racing. There’s definite momentum loss with wheels that small. A 650b is the same diameter as a 700×28-30ish. That’s why it works so well.

Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
7 years ago

650b x 47 that is.

lop
lop
7 years ago
Reply to  Puma Pete

Faster bikes with fatter tires. What’s not to understand?

The DarKris
7 years ago
Reply to  Puma Pete

1. Wider tires
2. Maintains similar road geometry
3. Wider tires
4. Works better for road cranksets than 700×45/29×2.0

Did I mention wider tires?

Padrote
Padrote
7 years ago

if you say so. I have never seen a pair of these on any of my friends’ bikes, and for $60-80 I’m not about to take a chance on them actually working tubeless.

Ian Million
7 years ago
Reply to  Padrote

oh its much more than that. you need 650b / 27.5 rims to match….and i absolutely love my byways. as a mountain biker turned roadie these tires, and subsequently the bikes that fit them, are game changers.

lop
lop
7 years ago
Reply to  Padrote

Why would you not chance them working tubeless? I mean, do you hold all tubeless-ready tires to the same standard? I honestly don’t follow.

The DarKris
7 years ago

With my current cyclocross bike running 27.5 x 2.0 I’m already sold on 650b gravel tires. Now all I need are studded 47-48mm tires so I don’t have to buy a new bike for the winter (or compromise running narrower 40mm tires on a 700c rim at high pressures).

Samridgebag
Samridgebag
3 years ago

Almost 3 years of riding the WTB Horizons set up tubeless on my Surly Midnight special without a flat. No odometer but I’ve probably put close to 5K miles on this pair riding on everything from pavement to very rough WV forest service roads. They seem like they could go another 5K. Wear thus far is cosmetic (tan rubber sidewalls are starting to show some dry rot). Curious how many miles others are getting out of these great tires.

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