Last spring I installed the last time new tires on my Pelago Stavanger Bike - the reTyre One tires, which are compatible with a variety of reTyre Skins. During the past months I rode the Gravel Chaser Skin whenever the asphalt stopped and the off-road adventures started, and these skins gave me confidence when cornering and great grip in uneven surfaces.
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I want to start off with something I wrote in the late spring: The skins and the reTyre One have zippers which allows you to connect the Skin - and there’s four different Skins available for different cycling needs - to the reTyre One. The reTyre One itself is a fully functional bicycle tire but with the different Skins you’re able to put on a new “Tire” onto your bike without the hassle of actually switching the tire. Zipping on a Skin takes me about two Minutes and it’s even quicker taking it off. It’s a great way to adapt the bike to different terrains and seasons - zip on the Winter Traveler Skin as soon as the snow starts falling, and take them off in spring.
This still holds true and it is such a great invention as it makes my life as the bicycle-tire-changing person in our family so much easier (I still have to switch the tires on my son’s woom OFF AIR bike 😒). Financially speaking it is also a bit cheaper to own a set of reTyre One tires and Skins according to your need than two sets of summer and winter tires (a set of our good winter tires costs easily 120 € and the same I usually pay for good summer tires), wheras a set of reTyre On + e.g. a Set of Winter Traveler Skins would be 170 € - so around 70 € cheaper. The main benefit for me is, however, the amount of time saved. I can not stress this enough, it really makes the procedure so much faster, it’s wonderful.
The Gravel Chaser Skin was just as easy to zip on as the Winter Traveler Skin, even if the reTyre One was a bit dirty. I guess if you’re concerned about the zipper getting stuck you could clean the tire with some ∞ Muc-Off products but I didn’t bother at all and they went on without a hassle in a minute. There’s a wee gap between the ends of the skin but during riding I did not feel it at all, so it wasn’t a problem.
The most important aspects of a tire is for me that it has grip and is long-lasting. I can’t comment on the longevity of the Gravel Chaser yet, but the grip has been very good. It has brillant grip on gravel roads and muddy forest paths, and they give me great confidence when I go through muddy or rocky bends in the trails and roads. Thanks to the higher shoulder knobs on the tire you have more control on uneven surfaces, and I had not slip my tires once during my rides. At the same time it has a fast-rolling centre tread, which means you can get some nice speed with them when you feel like it. It’s a great addition to the reTyre line-up for those of us who like to go bikepacking and ride gravel roads!
In conclusion I can say that the reTyre System of a base tire plus different skins is an excellent solution for those who use one bike for all their riding and don’t want to go through the hassle of changing tires before a ride or when the seasons change. Soon I will take the Gravel Chaser skins off again and put the Winter Traveler Skins on, making my bike ready for winter. But I am already planning some rides in Pohjanmaa with the Stavanger and the Gravel Chaser skins next spring, and I am happy to know that I can switch tires in a couple of minutes and be ready!
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