Serfas Seca RS Tyre Review

Josh Ross

A Review of the Serfas Seca RS Tyre.

I ride on my own more than I ride with people. On those long rides by myself, the mind tends to wander. And I often find myself writing reviews of the items on the bike that I’m currently testing, or just as often, I find myself writing reviews for things sitting at home in the box. I start to think about how I’ll position a particular product, in what way I might write about it, and I’ll run through my expectations. I get excited about telling everyone about great new products. The Serfas Seca RS tyres were a case of preconceived notions.

The Serfas Seca RS tyre makes for a good all round tyre

I almost always ride on Continental 4 season tyres. They aren’t the fastest tyre you can buy, but I always think it’s faster not to get a flat. I’d rather give up a bit of speed for something that’s tougher. You won’t really notice an ever so slightly slower tyre, but you’ll sure notice a flat and so it’s typically the Continentals for me. Occasionally I ride something else on a different bike, but when it’s a totally different bike, it’s hard to pinpoint the tyres.

So when the Serfas Seca RS tyres came in, how they might perform compared to the Continentals became a frequent internal dialogue. The Continentals certainly aren’t cheap, and the Serfas tyre is in many ways, promising the same performance for significantly less money. I could see the writing on the wall, as it were. These were going to be the bargain buy tyre; all the performance for significantly less money.

But that was not quite the reality. These are not every bit as good as the Continentals I typically ride on. I kind of set myself up to fail on that one, though. They are about one-third of the price. Instead of starting from a review in my head before I ever touched the tyre, I had to start fresh with these.

If I take a step back and instead let my preconceived notions fall by the wayside, then a different picture starts to develop. The Serfas Seca RS is a bit louder and a bit rougher feeling than other tyres I’ve been on, but it’s not at all a bad tyre. It actually feels quite fast. They promise to be a long wearing tyre. I’ve got no reason to doubt that based on the miles I’ve spent on them, and that harder centre meant for long wear also contributes to a feeling of speed as long as the pavement is pretty good.

The hard-wearing centre on the Serfas Seca RS offers long life, but can be harsh on rougher roads

When the pavement gets a bit rougher, they do beat you up a bit, but it’s nothing that can’t be managed. And I’ve found the flat protection to be quite good as well. Riding through shattered glass hasn’t led to any punctures and although I’m not prone to flats in general, the Serfas tyres have held their own as well as anything else. Even when I heard the unmistakable sound of a large piece of glass flying off the sidewall, I didn’t suffer any flats.

Another note on the Serfas Seca RS tyres is that they are very true to their size. While the Continentals caliper out to almost 25mm for a 23mm tyre, the Serfas tyres are much more true to size. If you’ve got a frame with tight clearance, that’s a good thing. It’s one thing to buy a 25mm tyre and not have it fit on your frame, but when you buy a 23mm tyre and get a 25mm tyre, that can be a point of frustration.

The bottom line on these is that they are worth a buy. They are a great budget tyre that you won’t feel buyer’s remorse about. They aren’t the most supple tyre out there, but that means they should last a good long while, making them an even better buy, and they seem to do a good job protecting against flats. Just temper your expectations a bit, know what you are buying, and these will be a good choice in a lot of situations.

Serfas

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