Panaracer

GravelKing X1 Tubeless Tire

easy and difficult

Familiarity:

I've used it once or twice and have initial impressions

Bought a set of 700x35c X1 base spec. Fitting them to Bontrager hooked alloy rims with 21mm internal and tubeless strips was a sweaty task, but they made it on. Mostly hand install, with the last bits requiring help from a plastic park tool tire lever to flex the bead and make it over the rim. Oddly, once they were prepped in the center well for inflation, sans sealant, a basic dual head Blackburn track pump got them popped onto the walls with zero fuss, valve cores in. Even easier than the Pathfinder Pro tires they replaced, from memory. Using Orange Endurance. Stans was out of stock at the LBS. In my experience, both work well, and should with these x1s. Stans tends to require more frequent inflations in my experience. The x1s roll nice. They have a rounder profile from center tread to outer, which agrees with road biased use. Going from 38/40c to 35 turned out to be a good idea too on my Domane. Plenty supple and a touch more maneuverable and easygoing uphill. As quiet if not quieter than the Pathfinders. The Pathfinders were an excellent choice. Served admirably for thousands of miles, and made it through multiple small punctures/slices without once requiring roadside attention. They even retained sealant in liquid form well past refill parameters per manufacturer. But I wanted narrower tires and for whatever reason prefer black sidewalls, and have had good experience with Gravelking SK tires (tad noisy) on another bike, so I decided to give some x1s a try. So far, so good. Recommend!