Just ordered some Archetypes from Velomine on Phil Wood hubs, shipped the next day. So keen to get my hands on them, they come well recommended from friends too.
I’m impressed with the service from Velomine so far. Open and honest conversation so far.
Maybe ‘winter tires’ was too literal, I’m talking about riding in the rain at 5am through winter which based on my experience with my Continentals Ultra Sports and semi wet roads hasn’t been great so far.
This is me in Sydney. For up to 28mm just get gatorskins. I even started using them with mr tuffy liners cos I hate punctures on my commute, and some of the roads west of the cbd are shithouse. I’m now using some ultracheap zaffiros with the tuffy liners and they’re fine. I leave my fancy fragile tyres for weekend riding on nicer roads.
Could not love my 25mm Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires more. Commuted through snow, ice and rain with them and toured on them. No flats. Solid traction. Wouldn’t skid on 'em though.
Note: “here” is Sydney. Melbourne seems to get a lot more rain than Sydney, but someone will probably pull some bullshit stat about Melbourne having more days of sunshine per capita divided by GDP or something. Probably still not as much as Canackastan tho.