Hutchinson launches tough and efficient Touareg gravel tyres
Channel your sense of adventure with Hutchinson's new Touareg gravel tyres
French tyre brand Hutchinson has revealed its new Touareg gravel bike product range.
The company’s Touareg is targeted at riders who journey beyond the tarmac and is available in three sizes. Hutchinson’s engineers had two distinct desires when trying to make the Touareg the best gravel tyres they could be: low-rolling resistance and puncture proofing.
Aware of gravel bikers being bolder with their choice of off-road routes, Hutchinson wishes to produce a tyre which could provide traction, ample deceleration and confidence handling on gravel trails.
The Touareg’s tread design features tightly grouped centre blocks, offering the best possible trade-off between rolling efficiency and brake bite. At the edges of these gravel tyres, you’ll notice a pronounced increase in tread block size, to enhance the cornering stability.
Rubber compound diversity also helps to deliver the best gravel tyre solution for Hutchinson. Touareg's tread blocks are mostly 60 ShA durometer grade rubber, for durability, yet the edge blocks are 50 ShA, which makes them softer, boosting grip when cornering at modest to moderate lean angles.
Hutchinson’s material experts settled on an overall casing specification of 127tpi for the Touareg. To improve the tyre’s puncture resistance in off-road conditions, there is tubeless compatibility and the brand’s hardskin reinforcement.
The Touareg range spans three sizes. Hutchinson's 700c diameter version of the Touareg is available in both 40mm and 45mm widths, with the weight specification for these being 490g and 550g respectively.
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Gravel riders who desire a Touareg tyre with even more volume, to boost ride comfort and traction, can opt for the 650b sizing, which measures 47mm across the tread. This is the largest casing Hutchinson is offering with its Touareg gravel tyre and weighs 585g.
Style obsessed gravel bikers can opt for their Hutchinson Touareg tyres in a tanwall finish, although this is purely an appearance upgrade. The tanwall Touareg gravel tyres are not lighter than Hutchinson’s black finish options.
Pricing for the new Hutchinson Touaregs is €37, with each tyre handmade in France.
Lance Branquinho is a Namibian born media professional, with 15-years of experience in technology and engineering journalism covering anything with wheels. Being from Namibia, he knows a good gravel road when he sees one, and he has raced some of Africa’s best-known mountain bike stage races, such as Wines2Wales and Berg&Bush.