tyre sizes for xc

upandover

hi new to forum,
most of my riding is xc on south downs with quite a lot of climbing ,i am looking to buy some tyres which i will be puttin on for a trip to lake district and the to carry on using on south downs next week i have chosen to go with some maxxis high rollers but just left to decide on size ..........which leads me to the question do xc riders use 2.35s front and back or is this generally used for downhill as i would rather have better grip on downhills and slightly slower on uphills or is the amount of drag gonna be really noticeable when climbing i currently have bontrage joner xr which i have torn sidewall on?
cheers

Father Faff

Well I have 2.1 High Rollers on my Meta 5.5.1 and I have found them pretty good on rocky Lakeland trails and I go fairly fast. I've never had a pinch flat but then I tend to keep the pressures quite high up toward the 40 mark. They roll slower than some tyres so I would imagine the 2.35s roll even slower.

I guess it really depends what bike you've got, perhaps how heavy you are, and how fast and sketchily you go downhills. I would guess that real downhill merchants would put fat, sticky High Rollers on. However if you are more xc then the 2.1s are plenty tough enough and are probably less tiring on a long day out.

Father Faff

PS: I believe this year's Metas have a 2.35 on the front and a 2.1 on the back which is another option you might want to consider if you like to get that tail swinging.....

BlackSpur

2.35 Highrollers are a fair bit heavier then the 2.1s, so will be slower to accelerate.