I've been shunning winter tyres for years now. I've tended to, purely for the sake of immediate economy, opt instead for an all-round tyre that is long-lasting, relatively cheap and grippy. I've had Vittorias, Vredesteins and Maxxis over the years and have been pleased at their durability through the flint-strewn, potholed roads round here. I tend to prefer folding tyres as I find them easier to get on and off in the rare occasion I've had a visit from the puncture fairy, and to be fair, many of the roadside swear-a-thons I've had have been a result of pinch flats and not penetration wounds.
That said, I was asked to look at a pair of ThickSlicks for a few months. I wasn't about to change my Continental Ultra Sports off my winter bike, but I'd never been really happy with them as they seemed sluggish and prone to slippy episodes.
The ThickSlicks come from Freedom who claim they are thicker (clue's in the name) and more durable than your average training tyre. They're not lightweight - a claimed 385g per tyre for the "Deluxe" 23mm ones I tested - but then neither am I, so I tend not to consider weight when picking treads to wrap my wheels in. The Duraguard strip in my pair gives an extra layer of puncture protection, it's claimed, and the crushed Kevlar in the casings helps support the sidewalls. And they are, as the name suggests, slicks.
Putting the wire-bead ThickSlicks on my Fulcrum 7s was like trying to tear a telephone book in half (for those that remember the paper version of the Yellow Pages). They were so unbelievably tight on my rims I punctured a tube trying to lever them on. This is not a job I would relish sat at the roadside, being sprayed by passing traffic with numbness spreading like melting butter to the tips of my fingers. I'm hoping that all the protection promised in the sales blurb means I don't have to repeat this process other than to remove them at some point in the future when there's a national rubber shortage and I have to give them up for the good of the economy.
So, to the road. Winter riding - on slicks... Madness, I thought. This ride is going to last about as long as it takes to pull myself and my bike out of the first ditch I come to. But after ten minutes of urban roadways, I was pleasantly surprised at the comfort and grip I was getting. Still, these were urban roads, and urban is what these tyres are used to. If I was really going to test them to their limits I would have to find some truly disgusting road surfaces to contend with, and if you want shoddy, muck-infested country lanes, the place to go is the Surrey Hills. Not the disinfected smoothness of The Box, though - the backroads around Leith Hill are Satan's velodrome for road tyres with gravel, stones, potholes, puddles, muck, thorns and broken glass in abundance.
Along the singletracks around Ockley and out towards Holbury St Mary I was blessed with the worst that Surrey could throw at me, and the ThickSlicks were more than up to the task. In those sort of conditions (and far from the warmth of a cake stop) I didn't recklessly chuck my bike at every imperfection, but travelling those roads you get a feeling your wheels could drop into a chasm around every corner. The further and filthier I got, the more I enjoyed not caring what I rode over.
As a finale I decided to venture up what was once the worst road in Surrey - Tanhouse Lane. This is the final climb up Leith Hill for those insane enough to take on the Octopus, and it ramps up in a series of 10-12% single lane twists until you reach Leith Hill Place and join the main RideLondon climb. The last (and only previous) time I tackled it, it was potholed and so riddled with debris, there seemed to be only one possible track along it. Thankfully, it has been resurfaced but it is still horrible and at times the only indication I got that I was going forwards was the water streaming past me that seems to flow regardless of the season. Having conquered Tanhouse Lane, I afforded myself the luxury of a fast descent down the delightfully smooth Anstie Lane and am happy to report that the ThickSlicks performed admirably here also.
A lighter Race version is available at 245g for speed merchants, but for year-round rough stuff the urban ThickSlicks are both good-looking and, on early evidence, tough as old boots. I really hope their durability is as legendary as their blurb suggests, because I have no desire to change these tyres in a hurry - and when I do, I might just have to cut them off...
Freedom ThickSlick Road Tyre, from £24.99 at chainreactioncycles.com
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