Continental Ultra Sport III tire - clincher, folding, PureGrip, Performance, E25, black or black/brown, 650, 700x 23, 25, 28 or 32

The media could not be loaded. Ok, so anyone reading knows, this is the only review that is going to tell you what you really need to know. I read them myself and there are a few haters posting bad reviews here, so I'll set that straight right now. As a bicycle mechanic, my thoughts while reading these reviews were that every single bad review was done by those who do not, AT ALL, ride even close to daily or that they have absolutely no clue what they are doing and cannot work on bikes..As for my review, i absolutely love these tires. They were super easy to mount. The reviews saying they are hard to mount don't know what they are talking about. So easy. My race tires are Schwalbe Pro 1's, now those are a pain in the a$$ to mount, but these were much easier and cost half the price. I got a red and blue one to set off the look of my Trek i use for daily riding and training. They are awesome looking with many color choices to match just about any bike, roll very smooth and the compound rubber they are made of is pretty durable for commuting. My race tires get gouged pretty easy since they are not meant for rocks and pebbles, these however, take a beating like a champ. For the price, you can't beat these tires. As for flats and those reviews, again, they don't know what they are buying or what they are talking about. These are not meant to be absolutely puncture resistant and don't claim they are. Do yourself a favor and buy a set of stop flat 2 tire liners on Amazon for less then $15. I have them on all my bikes and haven't had a flat on any of my wheels in over a year now and i ride more and harder then anyone i know. Just ceck out my pics and video, they show how well they also seat on the rim and how awesome they look.Bottom line, you want a great tire for your bike just pick a color to match it and order these.Update:3 months later i had replaced these with an equivalent, more expensive bontrager set of tires.. yeah, that lasted maybe 3-4 days and only because i at least gave them a shot to win me over.. they failed miserably and these continentals went back on. The bontrager's just weren't as smooth feeling, didn't absorb as much shock from bumps, weren't as balanced (i could especially feel the balance was off while riding without hands on bars) and didn't feel as if they gripped the pavement as well. Basically, these continental tires were superior in every category to which i compared them. These tires don't look like they've worn a whole lot and i imagine I'll be replacing them with a new set of the exact same ones in about 5-6 more months. Now, i ride like a crazy guy who is addicted to speed and the adrenaline that comes with passing cars on a bicycle, i ride 20+ miles almost daily and i ride my bikes harder in 1 day then most do in a year (or more), i service my bikes quite often as it's needed when you ride like i do and 9 months on tires might not seem that great but I'm probably far above 2k miles on these already so that's actually really freaking good. As long as they hold up to any weather damage they see, the average rider should see at least a couple years of decent use with these continentals. Still a 5 star tire from me and highly recommended, 110%

They look great

Although the puncture protection isn't the same level as other tires from Continental, its still a good tire. So far, so good on these city streets.

I'll start with my conclusion and then you can read the detailed explanation below if you want more info. These tires are slow. However, they are inexpensive. If you value cost over speed, get them. If speed is more important, find another tire.I have waited more than 2 years to write my review of these tires as I was trying to gather empirical data to prove out if these tires were responsible for making me slow, or if it was just old age catching up to me. Things to note for the following review: I am not a racer, but I like to go fast on my rides and compete against myself on routes and segments. I track lots of data for my rides, including power, heart rate, temperature, etc.I was very skeptical about expensive tires. I had been riding Gran Prix 4000s which were a highly regarded tire that wasn't too expensive. I was happy with them. The new line of Gran Prix 5000s that replaced them have pushed the price beyond the limit of what I am willing to spend on a tire, so when my GP4000s wore out I went looking for something else. The price on these Ultra Sport IIIs was too good to pass up. Test data I found online indicated they wasted a few Watts compared to the GP line. I figured that was splitting hairs and I wouldn't notice them, so I ordered them.I was immediately slower on one of my regular routes. Like .8 to 1MPH slower on average. (18MPH average instead of the 19MPH I would previously average on a hard effort on this route). Unfortunately, I changed too many variables at once, so I couldn't say which or which combination of changes were responsible for the slowness. In addition to changing tires, I also went up from 25mm to 28mm. The 28s didn't fit on my bike with my 50mm carbon wheels, however, so I had to ride them on basic aluminum non-deep section aluminum wheels. So that's 3 different equipment variables right there. It was also only one ride, so maybe wind and weather were a factor. I needed to do more testing!I ordered some 25mm tires instead and continued my testing going back to my carbon wheels. I rode the same 21 mile route multiple times recording the power and speed and started plotting the points on a graph. I could draw a trendline between the points and confirmed that speed for a given average power over this route was much slower compared to historical data with the GP4000s. I have more than 30 rides worth of data for this. I was starting to suspect the rear hub in my wheels might have been degrading, so I first replaced the bearings in it and then replaced the entire hub. Both of those changes did make incremental improvements in the speed vs. power chart, but it still left a gap to where the GP4000s were of about .1 to .5 MPH in average speed for a given average power.From that, I conclude that these tires are noticeably slower than GP4000s. There were more experiments I wanted to do, like compare with a set of 25mm GP5000s that I was gifted, but I ended up getting a new bike so that never got done. My new bike came with cheap wheels and tires and is also slower in terms of speed vs. power than my old bike with the GP4000s, so I need to do some experimenting there. They have closed a bridge for replacement on the route I used, so I can't get more comparison data until it re-opens :(

I don't know if I got the wrong tires or if my tire rim combo is ideal, but I didn't even need tire levers to get the tires mounted. This was the first time I ever put tires on a bicycle. I was nervous since a lot of reviews said the tires were difficult to mount. I put on mechanic's gloves and used my hands only. The rims are sunrise carbon fiber 700c. Black out color way for the win too

Excellent replacement road bike tire for my Cannondale R500. Had a very old Bontrager tire that I wanted to replace but did not want to break the bank, so I gave this tire a try. Fairly easy to install and ride quality has been solid. I've rode approximately 600 miles on it and have had no issues and no punctures.