Continental Gator Hardshell review: The most rugged heavy duty tyre out there, but they need to get with the times

The Continental Gator Hardshell tyres have been around for over a decade now, and are the brands most hardy winter road bike tyres. Whereas most tyres have a puncture protection layer along the centre, these Hardshells fit a puncture belt across the entire tyres from bead to bead along with an added belt. This really does make them as close to impervious to punctures as you can realistically get.

However, this design lacks modern day updates such as tubeless or hookless compatibility that most of the best road bike tyres have now, even if sizing has always been somewhat progressive by today’s standards. Add to that a sluggish feel and high rolling resistance with heavy weight and middling wet weather grip, these tyres take a lot of potential speed off the bike.

Winter training may be for hours in the saddle, but it’s nice to feel more return on investment of effort, especially over the winter months. I’m happy to give up some ruggedness in favour of a bit more speed and grip.

Design and specifications

The Continental Gator Hardshell tyres are a proper heavyweight of a tyre. Three layers of 180 TPI (threads per inch) polyamide are used for the main casing component of this tyre, one more than usual in the range that Continental offers. This is then paired with a wider than usual Poly-X anti-puncture breaker belt. It extends further down the sidewalls so as to better protect from items such as glass shards on the roadside gutters. This is fitted underneath the standard Continental rubber tread.

The biggest puncture protection feature however is the Duraskin layer, which goes from bead to bead and gives the distinctive mesh net pattern present on the sidewalls of the tyre. This is designed to be abrasion and cut resistant to further prevent any change of penetrative punctures occurring.

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Interestingly, the tyre does not feature tubeless or hookless compatibility. It does however feature relatively progressive tyre widths which have been available a good while before 32mm road tyres became somewhat commonplace; 700x23, 35, 28 and 32c are available, while a 27x1 ¼ gives an even wider option.

All tyre options are black, without any additional feature such as the reflectivity option found on the Continental GP5000 AS TR tyres, while a foldable and rigid version are available. Folding tyres such as the one on test come out a bit lighter at any given size, with a claimed weight of 330g coming in close to the measures 328g on our scales. Recommended inflation pressure for the 28mm is 95 PSI with a max of 116, both of which seem high for winter riding.

Performance

I’ve actually got a lot of experience riding the Continental Gator Hardshell tyres, for many years they were my go to choice for training, and they have yet to receive any huge updates over that period. These test tyres are the folding version which are lighter than the rigid version and a bit more supple. I have commonly seen complaints that the Gatorskin tyres are hard to fit, however fitting them to the Shimano 105 wheelset I used to test, they were easy to fit using just my hands to mount the beads. Part of why this is easier is likely also due to these tyres being clincher only, not tubeless, so the clearances are not quite as tight.

Actually getting out on the road and testing these again, on some rougher road surfaces I am instantly reminded about one of the aspects of these tyres that I was not particularly keen on. Even in the 28mm version with a conservative 80 PSI for clincher setups, these tyres are not the most supple. Being clincher rather than tubeless, you can’t then run lower pressures to combat this without the increased risk of pinch flats. However, some still worship at the altar of the clincher tyre.

Part of this lack of suppleness though is down to the construction of the tyres. The Hardshell structure that lends its name to the tyres is not forgiving, and it’s common that puncture protection does impact the ability of the tyre to adapt in shape to road textures and therefore affect both suppleness and rolling resistance. It’s why we tend to see the fastest rolling tyres be a mix of high thread count but also low puncture protection. With the Hardshell structure wrapping around the entire tyre and sidewalls, rather than just a central belt, it’s even more pronounced with the Gators.

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However, all this rugged protection does mean that these tyres are as close to bomb-proof as you will get on a road tyre. For reference, I used to use these for riding around trails in the Forest of Dean on my road bike long before gravel bikes hit the market. They were not comfortable, but over the course of around 20,000km of winter seasons of riding, I had perhaps one or two punctures, with one caused by hedge trimming and the other caused by running the tyre for long enough that the tread had worn and the carcass was exposed to a rather nasty thorn penetrating it.

This protection extends well down the sidewalls too so bits of debris at the sides of roads and even larger objects will find it difficult to get through this protection. These tyres are like the skin of an alligator: tough and very rugged. Our Senior Tech Writer, Will, also ran these for years commuting through Leeds city centre, strewn as it is with glass, and found them basically impervious.

There is one massive drawback to all this protection however, and that is that these tyres are noticeably slower rolling than most other road tyres available on the market at the moment. Over the winter months moving into the summer, it was not uncommon for my average ride speeds to go from around 27kph average to 30-32kph average for the same power and heart rate efforts once I switched these tyres out.

We’ve seen in our rolling resistance testing that more rugged tyres tend to roll slower, and the Gator Hardshells certainly fit that trend well. I’ve been enjoying the summer weather and testing some road racing tyres with low rolling resistance, and even on the same wheels and bike the Gatorskins are markedly slower. There’s an argument that slower but not punctures is faster, but I’ve not picked up many punctures testing tubeless race tyres as the tubeless feature plugs most smaller punctures anyway. However, for the sake of training, it’s not how far you go but how long you spend on the bike. I just personally prefer going faster for the same effort level.

Another area where these tyres struggle a bit more is wet weather traction. In the dry, they are decent, but nothing special, especially when compared to Continental’s own BlackChili equipped tyres such as the GP5000 AS TR. However in the wet, the Gators (previously called the Gatorskins) have picked up the nickname ‘Skaterskin’, given the relative lack of wet weather grip compared to other tyres in the brands lineup. They are certainly not confidence inspiring on damp roads, and I have had a few small moments where corrections were needed to keep the rear tyre the right way up, but I wouldn’t call them the worst I’ve used.

This lack of wet weather traction is also visible when climbing out of the saddle though, especially on steeper climbs where, in the damp, slippage is not uncommon. The high weight is also not the most pleasant for stepper inclines, but the folding version are significantly lighter than the rigid offering. Overall, these are a rugged and heavy duty tyre that will reliably stay inflated, so ideal for commuting. However, they are not fast, and are not a tyre designed for pushing performance in more wintery weather.

Value

Value is a bit of a tough one to judge with this tyre. For the relative performance and speed of them, the £57.95 price is high, and the likes of the Goodyear Eagle Sport offer a more supple, cheaper, and equally limited by lack of tubeless more training tyre. The likes of the Pirelli Cinturato Velo tyres are around £8 more expensive but roll faster and feature tubeless so punctures have the potential to seal in the event of their happening.

Where the Gatorskin Hardshell recoup some value is in how long these tyres last. A rear tyre can do comfortably over 3000 km in winter conditions including light gravel in my experience before the tread wears down too much, and potentially more than this. That means fewer times replacing the tyre, and over the winter this can really boost the overall value.

My issue with these tyres is more in how they feel. Low rolling resistance and not ideal wet weather corning mean that, frankly, I don’t have quite as much fun on the bike. I’d trade sealing some punctures with tubeless and even replacing a few tubes for the sensation of better performance metrics such as zipping around corners faster. This is a personal preference thing of course, but I’d much rather splash out on the Continental GP5000 AS TR, one of my favourite tyres, for better grip, faster rolling, more cushioned feeling, and reflective sidewalls. They may cost more, but the ride sensations make it up for me and boost the value.

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Verdict

The Continental Gator Hardshell tyres do what they set out to do pretty well. They are thick and tough, like alligator skin, and as a result last a very long time and do very well to prevent punctures. However, they are heavy, they are very slow rolling, lack tubeless compatibility, and wet weather grip isn’t the best. All this means they are not a very ‘fun’ tyre to use. A rugged workhorse certainly that are great for winter training miles, and then feeling noticeably quicker come the summer as you switch tyres. But if you want fun winter riding with puncture protection but better grip, go for the Continental GP5000 AS TR.