[froze]

Originally Posted by bikejrff

I ride mostly on paved or chip 'n seal country roads and never in the rain. Totally avoid dirt and gravel roads. Will avoid newly chip 'n sealed roads for months until the oil and tar are all gone. I also wipe down and inspect my tires after everyride. It does help that I only weigh between 141-146 depending on the time of the riding season. I've stocked up on the Conti GP4000S tires on sale in the UK recently, I feel much faster when riding on the Conti's. Good luck with your Kendas.

Who would have thought that 20 pounds or so would make that much of a difference? Chip and seal roads are pretty rough on tires, I have some of that around where I live, but mostly I ride on blacktop or concrete. The mileage figures on the Armadillos were while I lived in California, and I use to ride into the mountains a lot which meant coming down fast with lots of twisty curves, so some that lower wear may have been due to that.

This feeling of being much faster, or even a little faster on Conti has something to do with how the tire feels, it's not actually faster. In a rolling resistance tire test (looking at clinchers only) the Conti 4000S were only above average in a lot of about 100 clincher tires tested. The measured watts per wheel for the Conti GP4000S was 14.0 tested with latex tubes because those consume about a watt and half less then butyl tubes. Then the Conti GP4000 (no S) was 18.9, one of the slowest! Whereas the "fastest" tire currently still on the market when the test was done was the Vittoria Ultra Speed at 11.9, while the slowest was the Conti Ultra Sport at 21 watts. This put the GP4000S down to the 34th fastest clincher tire.

The GP4000S would feel faster coming off of Armidillo All Condition tires. But how fast is fast? I personally knew the team Captain who won the 4 person team event during the RAAM in 2001 and they raced on those Aramidillo tires! The below test didn't test those tires, had they tested them they probably would have gotten the highest wattage consumption rating...but maybe not.

Anyway see this: http://www.biketechreview.com/tires_old/images/AFM_tire_testing_rev9.pdf