TPE16: Skinwalls are Back – Vee Tire Co and Panaracer add more to the mix

I’m starting to come around on the gumwall look. At first I thought these tires were reserved for Rivendells with full racks, fenders, and Acorn saddlebags. But even some of the latest carbon road bikes I’ve seen with these tires look ok. I guess as long as the sidwall doesn’t start to yellow and crack, it looks ok.

Any performance benefit to skinwall tires?

John, your heart is in the right place, but it’s not necessary here. You (and the editors) are mis-using the word “skinwall.”

It doesn’t refer to light-colored sidewalls, but rather thin, supple sidewalls. It’s used in contrast to “gumwalls,” which are cheap tires with tread-like rubber from bead to bead. Skinwalls have little but casing fabric in the sidewalls (with just enough rubber to bind everything together). The only part of a skinwall with a lot of rubber in it is the tread itself.

All high-quality bicycle tires are skinwalls by this definition, though you could argue that tubeless-ready tires, having extra rubber in the casing to hold air in the absence of a tube, are gumwalls too. But originally, gumwalls were cheap 27″ tires you’d get on a Huffy 10-speed. Skinwalls were the new breed of high-quality clincher that appeared in the early ’80s.

Here’s a Hutchinson web page where they make exactly this distinction:

http://www.hutchinsontires.com/en/informations-techniques

Yes!!! A 700×52 Panaracer slick – rejoice!

The white tire reminds me of how silly some things in the industry are. Before we get another BB or axle standard, how about we investigate why in 2016 the same tire can be marked 28 and 29.

Panaracer, Any gum wall gravel king (non SK) coming out? 700×28?

I think the resurgence is down to two factors: disc brakes and Dugast tubulars. Disc brakes mean you won’t get ugly aluminum/dirt road/rim slurry staining your sidewalls, and the Dugast fat knobbies were the non plus ultra tire for years. So sexy.

I’m all for tan walls, I love the look and have them on my race wheels, but only when they’re on tubulars or open tubulars where the tan colour is the natural colour of the very high TPI cotton casing used for the tires. Fully vulcanized tires like these where the rubber is coloured to imitate a proper tan wall tire looks horrible and cheap to me.

Not all skinwalls are created the same either. I just swapped out a pair on my 1986 Fuji Allegro.

The OEM bike had higher quality skinwalls on it. They still had good tread life on the center strip of the tire as the bike was rarely ridden from 1992-2007. Most of what mileage it did get was 1987-1992 before I put it in storage. Anyway, I took it back with me from Jacksonville, FL to Miami, FL and started riding it more often from 2007 to present. 2007, I changed them over to Forte GT2 Kevlar tires. At that time the OEM skinwall tires had cracks in the sidewalls. They still were solid tires though, but being a nervous safety conscious cyclist, I figured I would try modern kevlar blackwalls rather than get stuck 40 miles from home with a tire that unraveled and fell apart. Last weekend the Forte kevlar tires wore out. Add that where someone had punched a hole for the retail plastic tags for pricing labels and the rear tire was compromised. Airing it up and it had a bulge. I rode it that way for years until the middle tread had worn in a few spots. A bulge does that, prematurely wears and it also wears elsewhere in spots because the tire is out of round and even more unbalanced.

Both sets of tires had a single flat from a shard of glass in the rear tire. The OEM skimwalls, that shard of glass actually cut the skinwall. I was able to duct tape it on the inside of that tire and it didn’t really bulge noticeably. The Forte took a direct hit from glass in the center of the tread. So I replaced the Forte’s with Kenda K36’s today. Since they are brand new, I have no complaints yet. I don’t like them as much as the Forte’s. Time will tell though. the Kenda’s were $ 26 for 2 delivered on Amazon. The Forte’s as I recall were inexpensive closeouts from Performance Bike too. I think I paid around $ 15-20 a tire back then. I wish I knew or could find the name of the OEM skinwalls. Just to see if they could be had somewhere for cheap ?

I have a set of standard Gravelkings (28mm black, sadly), not the SK version on the pictures above. Anyone knows if my tyres can be run tubeless too?