First Ride: The Pirelli P Zero Race TLR 40 mm Is Fat and Fast Road Tire Bliss

Slowly but surely, the road and all-road tire world is falling in line with the niche that Rene Herse has opened up: fast, lightweight, and supple road tires that happen to be wider than you’d expect from a road tire. However, whereas more high-end road tires are available in a 35 mm width, the new Pirelli P Zero Race TLR tire comes in a 40 mm wide tire.

Most wide road tire proponents have mostly looked for a 40 mm tire (or wider) with the casing of a fast road tire. While some of the major brands offer a slick tire variation of its gravel tire casing, this tire is noteworthy for simply taking its high-end road tire and plumping it up.

The brand’s high-performance road tires have traditionally been given the P Zero name, making the 35 mm and 40 mm options of Pirelli’s fast road tire a real standout. But what are they like to ride?

Quick hits: Seven things to know about the Pirelli P Zero Race TLR 40 mm

• The Pirelli P Zero Race road tire is the top race tire, now in a wider width.
• Tires are made in Bollate, Italy, alongside the other P Zero Race and P Zero Race RS TLR tires.
• Features a Speedcore 120 TPI casing and SmartEvo compound for the rubber.
• Sizes: 700c x 35 mm & 40 mm, in addition to existing 26 mm, 28 mm, 30 mm, 32 mm.
• Weight: 35 mm: 400 g; 40 mm: 460 g (claimed)
• Price: $94.90 USD / $136.99 CAD
• For more: pirelli.com

Details

Put the 40 mm wide Pirelli P Zero Race TLR tire beside a P Zero Race RS, and they look awfully similar. The low-profile lightning bolts along the sides of the tire largely match the rest of the P Zero road tire lineup. Honestly, if you stuck a 28 mm P Zero tire in Photoshop and widened it slightly, you’d get just this.

That tread pattern comes via the company’s motorsport-derived SmartEvo tire compound. Pirelli says it uses three different smart polymers that “allow you go to faster at the same power output and through corners.” Translation? Pirelli says the rubber will offer grip across different weather conditions and varying road surfaces.

Underneath the rubber is Pirelli’s Speedcore casing construction, shared with the majority of the Pirelli P Zero tire lineup. That gets you thin three layers, which in conjunction with the aramid particles in the rubber, allows for greater casing flexibility while balancing puncture resistance.

The 120 TPI casing here is the same as the rest of the P Zero Race TLR tire lineup.

These tires are made in Pirelli’s new factory in Bollate, Italy. The factory doesn’t just make bike tires, but it allows the company to pull technology from its motorsports development and implement it in its P Zero road tire lineup, including these new RS tires.

Off to the sides is a squared-off bead, an uncommon sight from Pirelli against the tubeless-ready tires that tend to use a round bead. Pirelli says this improves the fit and seal against the array of hooked and hookless rims out there.

As for why these new 35 and 40-mm wide tires aren’t part of the Cinturato All-Road or Cinturato Gravel tire lineups? The focus of Cinturato is different from P Zero, with different casings and different goals for performance.

You could ride these new 35-mm and 40-mm wide tires on dirt and gravel if you want a slick tire, but the road tire casing makes these more susceptible to punctures and cuts than a Cinturato tire.

Variations and pricing

This new P Zero Race TLR tire is simply an addition to the existing lineup rather than a new tire. While these are expensive tires, the price is fairly in line with other high-end tubeless-ready road bike tires on the market.

Riding the P Zero Race 40 mm tire

My set of Pirelli P Zero Race TLR 40 mm wide tires come in with a claimed weight of 460 grams. My pair weighed in at an average of 461 g, respectively. For context, this weight is roughly similar to the lightweight gravel tire options out there, with a 40 mm version of the Schwalbe G-One RS and WTB Vulpine both being lighter.

I paired these tires with a Shimano RX880 GRX wheel with a 25 mm internal rim width. Measured width at 40 PSI is 39.5 mm, or 38.8 mm at 30 PSI. This was only after two rides, however; I wouldn’t be surprised if these tires continue to balloon ever so slightly with more miles.

Installation was straightforward, only needing a standard floor pump to get itself mounted in places. A tire lever was required to install the tires in both cases, and I would be willing to bet that these tires even seat with a hand pump if you’re on in a pinch on the side of the road.

Max tire pressure on the sidewall is an impressive 70 PSI; that said, I found my sweet spot to be slightly over where I ride my gravel tires. I ran most of my roughly 40 mm tires with 30 PSI front and 35 PSI out back and found 3-5 PSI added for these tires kept them lively on the road.

This is a first ride rather than a full review owing to the lack of time I’ve had on these tires. However, my first ride with these tires was done back to back after riding the same course on 40 mm gravel tires. Here are a few things that I immediately noticed.

The first is how fast these tires are. There’s a noticeable difference between these tires and even my beloved fast gravel tire, the Schwalbe G One RS gravel tire. That is both on dirt and the road in a straight line.

I also found these P Zero Race TLR tires are much more eager to turn in than a standard gravel tire. Part of it is a tire shape that is quite a bit different than other tires at this width. This tire has much more of an oval shape than the rounder shape of a more traditional gravel tire. This results in steering turn-in that is noticeably quicker and a front wheel that is more willing to flop around on steeper, longer climbs.

While this is in comparison to a traditional gravel tire, I still find the overall shape of this tire to be a bit more oval and eggy than I expected. Is this fast in a straight line on the tarmac? Absolutely. But it also means that grip on dirt is perhaps not quite what it could be.

As one might expect, this tire simply is not as robust as a gravel tire. The sidewalls feel thinner and seem more prone to punctures than most gravel tires, and certainly more than Pirelli’s own line of Cinturato Gravel tires. This isn’t a tire I’d choose if I was riding through rocky singletrack with any regularity.

I suspect that this won’t matter to most folks. My first impression of these 40 mm wide P Zero Race TLR tires is that they’re easily one of the fastest-feeling tires I’ve ever tried at this width on the road. They perform like a road tire, just with some extra pliancy on choppy surfaces and chip seal roads.

Low weight, supple casing and feel, and easy tubeless setup? This is an impressive tire without much competition, and one I’m eager to ride more in the future.