Michelin Power Adventure 42 TL-ready tyre review

Michelin’s Power Gravel series of tyres has impressed us in the past, although this latest Adventure model is designed predominantly for riders who stay on the road but deviate onto gravel in dry conditions.

They’re fast, grippy, and give impressive levels of comfort on the road and for light gravel riding.

For a go-anywhere road bike, these would be one of my first choices.

Michelin Power Adventure 42 TL-ready tyre spec details

The Power Adventure tyre is available in a wide range of sizes, from 30mm right up to a huge 48mm. I tested the 42mm-wide option.

Michelin’s sizing is quite true to what’s printed on the sidewall – these measured 42.9mm wide at 40psi, mounted onto a hookless 25mm internal-width rim (Chris King ARD44).

The tyres fit without much struggle on these wider rims and when I tried them on a set of more traditional hooked tubeless rims, they took a little more effort but slipped on without much protest.

With the same tyre pressures, the Power Adventure 42 measured up to 42.54mm.

Tyre seating was quick on both, and they retain pressure on the hookless Chris King rims better than most higher-volume tubeless tyres. That suggests accurate manufacturing and a very straight bead.

At 442g, the Power Adventure 42 is light for such a large-volume tyre. Similar low-tread gravel tyres are heavier, such as Panaracer’s GravelKing semi-slick in 43mm, which weighs a claimed 480g.

WTB’s Byway in 44mm is claimed at 449g, though, and a 42mm Specialized S-Works Pathfinder weighs a claimed 435g.

The Power Adventure's tread combines a 13mm-wide pure slick central strip that is bordered by a tread pattern of 1.5mm-deep parallelogram-shaped 5x5mm blocks.

On the road, I ran the Michelins at 45psi in the rear and 40psi in the front.

SRAM’s online tyre pressure calculator suggested I run them at 37.5psi front and 39.9psi at the rear on tarmac (33.7psi / 35.9psi on gravel). I felt they ran a little quicker with more pressure, though.

Michelin Power Adventure 42 TL-ready tyre performance

The Adventures impress on the road. The large volume provides superb comfort, yet there’s enough stability in the sidewalls when loading up into a corner to prevent the tyre from squashing and dipping.

This meant I could really take advantage of the tyre’s shape and push into lean angles through corners.

The low tread on the shoulders also gives a consistent feel and grip level between running fast in a straight line and pushing into a corner.

Often, a gravel tyre with a more defined tread can feel unsteady going into a corner, when the difference in rolling resistance between straight-line traction and corners feels like a brake being applied. That’s not the case here.

The shoulders’ cornering grip comes good on wet tarmac too. The supple compound and water-dispersing tread instil plenty of confidence to maintain your speed in corners, where lesser tyres will see you needing to back off.

On gravel, the Power Adventure 42’s volume does wonders for how the tyre performs. For the lighter gravel of ungraded roads and local towpaths, these are superbly fast, proving resilient too.

After a few hundred miles of running, the tyres are cut-free, showing very little sign of wear. Most importantly, I’ve had no punctures.

On tougher gravel, rutted rocky surfaces and weather-worn, root-strewn woodland singletrack, the Power Adventure 42s are (understandably) out of their comfort zone.

Here, they offer little in the way of traction in damp, slick conditions and don’t provide anything like enough bite for technical off-road climbs.

In this regard, it’s certainly horses for courses.

Michelin Power Adventure 42 TL-ready tyre bottom line

To measure the Power Adventure 42 tyre on the toughest gravel conditions does it a disservice, however.

As an ‘all-road’ tyre, where tarmac forms a great portion of your ride, these are hugely impressive.

I’d suggest if your endurance road bike or fast gravel bike has the tyre capacity to handle the Michelin Power Adventure in this 42mm size, you’re unlikely to be disappointed – as long as you’re realistic about the type of gravel surface you tackle.