The Hutchinson Caracal Allroad tyres made me wonder if I should ever bother with slicks again

This was meant to be a slightly different review. I had originally planned to review the standard, more established Hutchinson Caracal Race (the 40mm wide one) at The Traka. However, the sudden emergence of a thunderstorm meant a hasty do-over of my tyre strategy. Basically it wasn’t the time to be riding a nearly slick gravel tyre if I wanted to remain rubber side down.

In all honesty, while the Caracal Race makes what appears to be a good case for being the fastest gravel tyre on the market - whether that makes it one of the best gravel tyres out there is obviously a more holistic assessment - the fact that it only comes in a 40c width means it already feels somewhat dated in a world where MTB tyres are taking over gravel racing. Without too much fanfare, Hutchinson more recently released the Caracal Allroad, effectively an even smaller version of the Caracal Race, designed to give the modern cohort of all-road and endurance bikes a bit more confidence off the tarmac without sacrificing on-road speed.

I must say, I think these tyres deserved more of an entrance; I’ve loved them, and think they're a strong contender for the best allroad tyre on the market, up there with the Teravail Ramparts in my book. They have the power to make your current bike a lot more fun, and they genuinely have me considering whether I should just run them on my road bikes at all times, regardless of the surfaces ahead of me.

Design and specifications

It’s perhaps a perfect illustration of how mad the tyre market is now (and if you ever hear me using that sentence in real life you have my permission to lobotomise me on the spot for being a dullard) but when the Caracal Race came out it was considered too slick to be considered for a lot of riding, but now we have Pirelli churning out ‘road’ tyres up to 55mm and the collective batting of eyes has been minimal. The Caracal, I fear, needs to get bigger to compete in what is a very competitive market, so I must say I was surprised to hear that instead, Hutchinson decided to make it smaller.

The Caracal Allroad takes the same basic form as the Caracal Race, though with the addition of a puncture protection strip, and just shrinks it down to a size that is squarely within the range of a lot of the endurance bike market. These would, for example, fit within the confines of a Canyon Endurace or a Specialized Roubaix, as well as being easily accommodated by a Standert Pfadfinder allroad bike that I had on test at the time these tyres landed on my doorstep.

The central tread is totally slick. This isn’t like the Challenge Gravel Grinder - a tyre I also love - where the centre is a file tread, but a proper slick, and effectively just a big road tyre. Moving out from the centre you have a strip of regularly spaced, low profile square blocks. There’s plenty of space between them to allow them to bite, and then at the shoulders there’s a line of two-square knobs that are taller to act as your get out of jail free card if things get very sideways. It’s a simple design, but as my colleague Tom can attest in his review of the Schwalbe G-One Allround, tyre design doesn’t need to be complex to be effective.

The tread itself is the brand’s Mach Tread 3.0, the same compound as used in its Blackbird road race tyres. Under this, the Caracal Allroad utilises the same Swift Easy casing, whereby the casing material doesn’t overlap itself under the central portion of the tread as is traditional, but unlike with the Caracal Race, the Allroad version does feature a puncture protection strip down the middle. In short, it’s a faster construction than the standard Caracal, but with a bit more security than the Race.

Performance

With the trend of gravel tyres growing ever larger year on year, with road tyres following suit too, with the likes of Pirelli offering some of its road tyres in 55mm widths now, it struck me as odd that Hutchinson would launch what appears to be a gravel tyre in a 35mm size. Put that out of your head though, which is always hard to do when you see shoulder knobs on a tyre, and think of it instead as a tyre that is ‘road+mischief’.

On the road the Caracal Allroad is more or less indistinguishable from a decent set of 35mm slicks. I have a set of 35mm Continental GP5000 AS TR on one test bike currently and while they don’t feel quite as efficient on tarmac there isn’t a great deal in it.

The central portion of the tyre, the slick bit, is what you’ll be spending most of your time on and providing you’ve got your tyre pressures right it’s wide enough that you’ll not be engaging the shoulder knobs much on the straights. While it’s hard to isolate the impact of the tyres alone while swapping between two different bikes, I certainly didn’t feel impeded in any meaningful sense by the Caracal Allroad, and still happily picked up several PRs on road segments.

Ultimately, the best compliment I can pay them is that, while on protracted road segments of my mixed surface riding, I never lamented having them fitted for a second.

When my riding diverted off paved surfaces and onto light gravel, things got a little more interesting. I’ve long been a fan of the Challenge Gravel Grinder, and any tyre that pairs a fast, slick centre with some safety shoulders to help me stay rubber side down. The Caracal Allroad flies along on smooth gravel, but while it does have better grip in the corners than an equivalently sized slick tyre, it definitely doesn’t have the bite of more gnarly options, but that’s not really what it’s about, I don’t think.

Basically it feels like a road tyre most of the time, even on gravel. It rolls fast, is a little squirrely at times and if it’s wet you’re still going to have to keep your wits about you, but it’s about 15% better in the corners. You won’t be railing them like a motocross rider, but it’s enough to improve your average speed on twisty sections compared to a slick alternative.

The flip side to this is that on fast road corners it doesn’t quite feel as sure-footed. The shoulder knobs flatten the profile slightly, and ultimately mean there's less rubber in contact with the road when you’re leant over hard. Ultimately, I think the trade off is worth it, though, and I've really enjoyed using them.

I think they’re perfectly suited to bikes like the Ridley Grifn RS, or the Standert Pfadfinder; bikes at the racier end of all-road, where it would be a shame to lose some of that hard-earned road speed, and where you expect some level of fast and loose off-road.

While it isn’t necessarily an objective test, I had no issues with punctures either in my time with them. They did seem to lose air more readily than some non-cotton tyres, but certainly nothing that caused me any concern, and setting them up tubeless was an absolute breeze. They went onto a set of Scope rims with very little effort and seated immediately.

Value

With an RRP of just under £45 / $50, the Caracal Allroad undercuts the likes of the Vittoria Terenno Zero and Terenno Dry. Given that it doesn’t materially impact road riding to any meaningful degree, whilst also offering better off-road handling it’s a lot of tyre for the money as long as you don’t want to do ‘proper’ gravel riding.

Likewise, if you want to fit a less knobby option to your gravel bike for road riding, while still keeping your options a bit open if you get curious about a fire road they also fit the bill perfectly. For mostly road-based bikepacking they’d be terrific too, if finding a spot to camp does occasionally involve non-tarmac surfaces.

Basically what I'm getting at is that they’re good value.

Verdict

I have really enjoyed using the Hutchinson Caracal Allroad tyres. Perhaps the best illustration of what they can do comes from a recent bike test I penned of the Standert Pfadfinder. It came as stock with a set of 34c Vittoria Corsa Pro Control tyres - very good, but not brilliant off-road.

Swapping to the Caracal Allroad made it feel like a different bike altogether, opening up fast, truly mixed surface riding. They aren’t going to be a tyre you rail dirt corners on, but they will allow you to maintain a higher speed than you would with a slick option, and that’s sometimes all you need.