For years the gravel-tire playbook was simple and wrong: take a road carcass, wrap it in heavier rubber, and call the added weight a durability feature. Silca's Protocol RCG-1 throws that approach out and starts from an XC mountain bike design instead, distilled down to the essentials and built around modern low-pressure dynamics from the bead outward. If your calendar leans toward fast, hardpack courses and pavement-to-dirt transitions, this is the tire in Silca's Protocol gravel range built specifically for that job.

The tread does the talking. Down the center you get a low, ramped directional pattern engineered for forward rolling efficiency, with a braking surface that bites when you scrub speed. Lean it into a loose, high-speed sweeping corner and the elevated, elongated side knobs engage to maximize contact area for grip and stability. It rolls close to a slick when you're pointed straight, then finds its edge when you tip it over, which is exactly the behavior you want on a course that mixes tarmac with hardpack gravel.

Under that tread sits Silca's Pulsar compound, a silica-reinforced styrene-butadiene rubber tuned to hold rolling efficiency, grip, and durability in balance rather than trading one for another. The Race Casing runs a 120 TPI construction developed around the pressures wide rims actually run, so the tire keeps its shape and ride quality when you drop pounds out of it. GhostShield puncture protection adds a security layer chosen for minimal rolling penalty, which fits a tire where speed is the stated priority. If you want more armor for rougher, chunkier terrain, that's where the RCG-3 with its SealSkin layer comes in instead.... Read More