26'' touring tyres

Lantern Rouge

Some advice please. I am converting my old Orange P7 MTB (all steel, no suspension) for touring duties and am uncertain which tyres to get. I shall be doing the Hadrian's wall cycle way (all on road) with family and towing a Revolution Cycles trailer. 26 x 1.5, 26 x 1.75 ? Wider? Schwable, Continentals?
Recommendations gratefully received.
Many Thanks,

Lantern Rouge

andymiller

If you're on the road then either would be fine. conti Sport Contact/City Contact/Travel Contact?

alfablue

In my experience Conti's puncture too easily (despite guarantee), the tread is very soft (at least on the sport contacts). Shwalbe Marathon (Marathon Plus for extra puncture resistance) would get my vote, you probably want a reasonable volume as per Schwalbes 26x1.75 if towing.

ut_och_cykla

I have used panaracer hi roads 1.75s for ages. won't do much off road naturally but good rolling on tarmac.have a great tour!

Lantern Rouge

Thanks for the advice everyone. I think my local bike shop stocks the Schwalbe marathons so I'll give those a try.

rustychain

These tyres are meant to be the business and a lot lighter than Marathons. They aren't cheap, but probably worth the investment...

http://www.schwalbe.co.uk/shop.sfxp?pag ... 97-803-238

alfablue

Wow - they look good - £26 from All Terrain Cycles

julk

Lantern Rouge,

I am just back from a holiday in the Lake District. I cycle camped there from near Edinburgh with 2 of my sons . Our route included the Hadrian's Wall route from Carlisle to Ravenglass - it is mostly on tarmac with some short gravel and sandy sections right by the coast.

We rode different bikes, an expedition, a touring and a hardtail mtb bike - all kitted up with Schwalbe tyres, marathon xr, marathon and marathon plus, for comfort, load carrying and some puncture protection capability.
The narrowest tyre was 35mm, the widest 2 inches. I would recommend the widest tyre your rims/frame/mudguards can take.

These Schwalbe tyres were excellent in all conditions. On checking my tyres after the trip I found 7 new fragments of glass embedded. I guess the puncture protection worked well for me.

The weather was pretty bad on the whole. We took enough clothing/gear to cope with the cold and wet. We saw so much rain that I would have abandoned during the trip if we did not all have mudguards.

I hope this helps.

PQAL26

Lantern Rouge - I have been using Panaracer Crosstown 26" x 1.5" (38 x 559) for the last 6 months. Mainly on tarmac, but they have performed well off road on a variety of surfaces. I inflate them to just over 80 psi rear and around 70 psi front. They seem to perform far better than my last tyres (Continental top touring 26 x 1.75) which had several puncttures before the rim bead split right off one of them. The bike they are fitted to is a Ridgeback steel frame rigid, modified with Pace suspension forks. This link may be of help also http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3802. I disagree with some other comments that wider is better, if you are mainly on tarmac the converse is true. If I was sure I would be on tarmac exclusively, I would not use a tyre wider than 28mm.[/url]

andymiller

PQAL26 wrote:

I disagree with some other comments that wider is better, if you are mainly on tarmac the converse is true. If I was sure I would be on tarmac exclusively, I would not use a tyre wider than 28mm.

I don't want to ignite the debate on this, but there is a school of thought (Chris Judah from CTC for one) that arguess that any increase in rolling resistance is counterbalanced by the reduction in vibration. I'd happily ride smoothish tarmac on less than 28mm, but if you're talking about rough pot-holed tarmac roads then personally I'd prefer wider tyres. At the end of the day it's a matter of horses for courses and personal preference.

stu99

I completed LEJoG on 26 inch 1.5 Specialized Nimbus tyres. No punctures or even loss of air in over 1,000 miles.

cooper.michael1

The Vredestein perfect moiree is good. Great in the wet and is folding so if its a remote tour you can take a whole spare tyre.

alittlecrazy

Lantern Rouge wrote:

Some advice please. I am converting my old Orange P7 MTB (all steel, no suspension) for touring duties and am uncertain which tyres to get. I shall be doing the Hadrian's wall cycle way (all on road) with family and towing a Revolution Cycles trailer. 26 x 1.5, 26 x 1.75 ? Wider? Schwable, Continentals?
Recommendations gratefully received.
Many Thanks,

Lantern Rouge

We had excellent success with Vredestein Spiders, 12,000km and not one puncture. Now we are rolling on the Marathon XRs, another 2000km later and still not a flat. The Marathon XRs do seem a bit noisier though.

toontra

I've done a couple of 600 mile tours on an Orange Clockwork rigid (very similar to the P7) with Schwalbe Marathon 1.5's. I also use the bike for commuting in London, so I regularly pick out glass, nails, etc. They've been on the bike for almost 2 years and have yet to p******e or even show any signs of wear.

Chris Bcp

Is there much difference between the different Marathon tyres apart from price? There seem to be Kevlars, XR, Plus and Supremes.

jibi

The Marathon XR are superb, my front tyre has done nearly 15000 miles, no punct*res.
I have a Marathon Plus on the back and after only 10000 has lost its tread, seems a softer compound, but 0 punct*res too.

I have had the Blizzards on my road bike and Hurricanes on another MTB.

I have finally decided to get a pair of the XR Evolutions for my next tour. I saw the Supremes at York and didn't like the look of tread and compound for Asian "roads"

george

alfablue

The Plus versions have an extra thick layer of puncture protection - should be completely puncture proof, however the tyre is a fair bit heavier, and I believe the profile is taller because of this - not that those are necessarily problems (though the profile issue could prevent fitting to bikes with minimal mudguard clearance).