Panaracer Agilest Duro TLR tyre review: lightweight for an all-season tyre with brilliant grip

The Panaracer Agilest Duro TLR builds on the Japanese brand’s Agilest line of tyres by introducing an all-season offering with enhanced puncture protection. This puts it in line with the likes of the Vittoria Corsa N.EXT, Pirelli P Zero Race TLR 4S, and Continental GP5000 AS TR as a four seasons tyre but with a heavy focus on performance and speed too.

Panaracer claims that the Agilest Duro has been made with what it calls The Panaracer Ratio. A combination of low weight, fast rolling, and high durability without compromise to any of those three factors. Compared to the standard Agilest, the new Duro does appear to compromise in some areas though. The weight is around 50g per tyre heavier, thanks to the new puncture protection belt and thicker tread, which itself is likely to negatively impact rolling resistance. However this does enhance the durability, while the tread itself maintains the same tacky, slick rubber as before.

The Panaracer Agilest Duro is also slightly cheaper than the Agilest TLR, but only by £5. At £65 they are by no means the most expensive tyres in this category, undercutting most of the competition, but they are not the cheapest offering out there. When it comes to combining performance, durability, and price though, where do they come out against the best winter road bike tyres?

Design and specifications

Panaracer’s previous performance focussed road tyres, the Agilest TLR and Agilest Fast, are impressively lightweight offerings even when compared to other high performance road race tyres. Part of how this is achieved is due to a lack of puncture protection, which is where the Agilest Duro has been designed to fill the gap.

The main tyre tread is the same ZSG (Zero Slip Grip) Agile compound found on the other Agilest models, which has been designed to maintain performance across different temperature conditions. These tyres also feature a slick non-patterned tread across the entire profile. Many tyres go down the route of featuring tread patterns, often claiming to improve wet weather performance. The reality is that due to the relatively thin profile of a road bike tyre, aquaplaning is not an issue, so grooves to displace water are not necessary. 

Having a fully slick tread means that the contact patch on the tyre while corning remains as large as possible on the tarmac, ideally improving grip, though the grooves (also known as 'sipes') allow the rubber to deform more and therefore heat up a little, increasing grip in theory. 

• What is TPI?

To enhance the puncture protection, Panaracer has added the Pro Tite Belt along with the 120 thread per inch casing. Given the other Agilest models feature no puncture protection belt, it’s probably fair to take Panaracer’s claim that the Duro is twice as puncture resistant with optimism. From our rolling resistance testing, we can also safely say that adding more puncture protection will also have increased the rolling resistance, a common trend we found across tyres. Panaracer still claims that the Agilest Duro are faster rolling than its Race Evo Tyre, thanks to the inclusion of the ZSG Agile compound.

Sizing wise the tyres come in 25, 28, 30 and 32mm widths, with all of them being listed as hookless compatible, and come in black or tan or gum/tan sidewall options. Fitting the tyres to my test wheels, they do come up narrower at 25.9mm for the 28mm version. Although it’s worth noting that the test wheels are quite narrow, Shimano RS170 wheels which measure 23mm external and 17mm internal, often 28mm tyres come out closer to true size on them.

Performance

First things first with any pair of tyres, fitting. This was an area the Panaracer Agilest Duro excelled, as fitting them to the test wheels was an absolute breeze when compared with other tyres. The ZSG Agile tread and casing are nicely supple so are relatively easy to manoeuvre onto wheels, while the bead was able to be forced over with limited additional force.

My big gripe during this process however is the tacky coating used across the entirety of the tread. In the process of fitting the tyres, I removed pretty much all this coating on the wheels, which made a bit of a mess where I was doing this. What remained on the tyre came away on the first ride, so I’m not sure the benefit of this tacky coating. It’s only an issue when fitting the tyre for the first time, but a pain nonetheless.

Once the tyres were actually on the rim though, they seated easily with a track pump and sealed no problem. They do however come up a bit narrow, at 25.9mm compared to 28mm. The test wheels are narrow at 17mm internal, which does often lead to a smaller measured width. However most tyres fitted on them have not been 2mm narrower, so it’s safe to say the Panaracer do come up on the narrow side.

Out on the road for testing, it’s mostly been fairly wet and wintery riding conditions. Perfect for testing all-weather grip and performance, but cold weather can have an impact on tyre rolling resistance due to hardening the rubber and making the tyres less supple. Panaracer does claim however that the ZSG Agile compound maintain more grip and rolling performance across a wider range of temperatures, including when it gets colder, although no exact figures or temperatures have been quoted.

It's hard to quantify tyre rolling resistance without specific lab testing such as in our rolling resistance testing. However, there are some educated inferences that we can make from that. We did test both the Agilest TLR and Agilest Fast, but both performed very differently with the tube-only Fast version being one of the fastest, and the TLR option being quite a bit slower. The compounds used are the same across those and the Duro, but with the Duro being a tubeless tyre, we can assume it’s similar to the Agilest TLR, but with a puncture protection belt. We observed that models with increased puncture protection were slower than their more race day counterparts. This all tracks with subjective perceptions, that the Agilest Duro are not slow, but they are not as fast as the likes of the Continental GP5000 AS TR.

Where the Duro does perform well is grip. That slick tread and tacky rubber feeling appears to translate well to cornering performance across all weather conditions. Doing some race simulations at the Darley Moor track in the UK, I was able to push round corners pretty comfortably, even in the damp conditions. Even steep climbs, pushing 15% or more in the wet, I had no issues with tyre slip when out of the saddle.

Weight is another strong point for the Agilest Duro, coming in at 20-40g lighter than many other all-seasons tyre offerings for a pair. It’s not a huge amount, but being at the outside of a rotational mass does mean they have lower inertia. This should in turn make them easier to accelerate from lower speeds, and that may also have contributed to their better feeling on steep inclines on the more extreme end of the spectrum.

As is standard with my tyre testing, I actively went out of my way to hunt down some truly awful roads to determine puncture protection. A mix of hedge trimmings, farm tracks, in the gutter with shrapnel and glass, plus lot of storm debris, all made for the perfect puncture testing grounds. In all my ventures into these roads, the Panaracer Duros didn’t have any issues with punctures, with not a single thorn or shard of glass making their way through the thread and the carcass.

Obviously punctures are sometimes just down to luck, or lack of it rather, but the Duros have proven to be quite durable during testing.

Value

In the niche of higher performance road tyres that are fast yet durable for all season riding, the Panaracer Agilest TLR performs fairly well. £65 for a tyre is still a lot of money, but looking at similar sorts of tyres like the Vittoria Corsa Pro Control, Vittoria Corsa N.EXT, and Pirelli P Zero Race TLR 4S, they are all around the same sort of price figure. What we can’t comment on is rolling resistance, but given the standard Agilest tyres use identical compound to these, the presence of a puncture protection belt likely adds to that rolling resistance a bit.

Where the Agilest Duro does outperform these competitors though is the weight, as a pair of the Agilest Duros comes out more than 20-40g lighter than all of these other options. Given this weight is at the outer point of rotation on the wheel, it makes a more discernible impact when accelerating or slowing down than weight anywhere else on the bike. These are no super lightweight tyres by any means, but it can give a slightly more spritely ride feel. The grip is also superb, comparable to the likes of Continental BlackChilli tyres which have long set a very high standard for road grip. If anything, the Panaracer are slightly better when it comes to traction under load such as steep climbs in the wet. That is one area where they outperform every tyre I’ve previously used.

Verdict

The Panaracer Agilest Duro TLR are in some ways a bit of an unknown quantity. In terms of rolling resistance, we can only take inferences from other tests, and subjective data, neither of which are the most accurate. Given they use the same compound as the Agilest TLR but feature a puncture protection belt, it’s highly likely they are slower rolling than other all-season tyres we tested. But the Agilest Fast, non-tubeless, was one of the fastest.

What we can give a more discerning opinion on are factors such as weight, grip, fitting, and puncture protection. Across all these factors the tyres have performed brilliantly, being the grippiest tyre I’ve used on steep climbs in the wet. Although punctures can be a bit of a lottery, activity seeking them out has yet to bring one about.

The tacky coating used on the tyres is a pain when fitting as it does make a mess though, and the price is good, but not great in terms of overall value for money. They make for a compelling option if you’re willing to sacrifice some potential out and out speed for enhanced all-weather grip. The lower weight does give them a slight edge when it comes to effort perception up steep inclines as well.