Schwalbe

I've used various tires over the past 9 years for gravel and have since switched over to mountain bike XC tires for most of my gravel needs as they are simply superior in pretty much every way. However, I wanted to try these tires out (along with the G-One R in 45mm which I'm less impressed with), so I grabbed a pair of these in 50mm. The RX's are very fast in a straight line. I'd put them on par with my Race King 2.0's on the straights.....however, for my terrain (Sonoran desert single and double track with varying degrees of sand over caliche and rock), the Race Kings/XC tires grip far better in the turns than gravel tires do. Now, if you're mostly going in a straight line and the terrain isn't too technical/chunky/demanding (think something like BWR Utah, which I would definitely use these RX's on) and your frame maxes out with 50mm tires, these tires would be a good option. Got them on the rim very easily, although I had to use an air compressor to get one of them to seat......easy peasy with the Park inflator head, my single best tubeless upgrade/tool. The QC at Schwalbe could be improved though as one tire weighed in at 630 grams and the other was 670 grams. Not sure why there was such a large discrepancy. They ride and roll well though, very comfortable. They don't have the cornering confidence of my Race Kings, but "gravel" tires are generally always a performance tradeoff trying to balance pavement and gravel/dirt road performance. When I'm blasting through non-technical singletrack with cacti lining both sides of the trail, cornering grip becomes exponentially important as running into a cactus (especially cholla) sucks a lot. If you're lucky enough to have dirt trails and no real consequences for sliding out in turns where you live, the cornering grip will probably be halfway decent for a gravel tire. They are a bit on the pricey side though, would be a good deal if they were about $25 less expensive.

I got the 50s for my gravel bike to soften the ride and provide more traction over tech. Previously I had the same tires in 40. I definitely notice the improvement in ride going over square edges. As for the tires themselves I've done 50+ mile road and gravel rides and they're great. I primarily ride on San Diego asphalt and offroad in the Lake Hodges area.

I'm running the 50s on a stock Trek Checkpoint SL5 2023 and they clear all the tight points. Trek says the max tire for the bike is 45 so keep that in mind. You can hit the tire with your forward foot in tight turns, but that also happened to me with the 40s. Obviously your clearance between the tire and frame is reduced so keep that in mind for clearing mud/debris.

As for the value, at $91 a pop these are getting up there, but that's right where I would expect a newer tire that seems to have a marketing push and actual professional race success behind it.

These work great and are a great replacement for the presta they replaced. Be wary of psi difference needed to inflate to open the valve when measuring your pressures at the valve, if you have an internal pressure measuring device then it won't matter. More brands are starting to support Clik as a standard. The only downside is that the valve/dust covers are not compatible with normal screw on, but are snap on. So if you have fancy or color matching valve caps/tools you can't use them unless someone 'makes' an adapter.

Live these radial tires! Great for Northern California conditions which are generally loose over hard. Been using them for months with average wear. Suggest inflating to your normal pressures first and slowly inflating over time until you find your 'sweet spot' of traction and performance. I found about what 4-5psi over what I normally ride works best for me. I went with a Ultra-soft /purple in the front and soft / orange In the rear and will probably get the same combo as replacement. Will see how it handles in the winter if a Magic Mary may be needed up front, but so far so good!