Best tyres for commuting

bregante

Having commuted through the winter on my Spesh Tricross Single it will soon be time to ditch the draggy cross tyres and get something a little faster! The problem is the roads in Manchester are sh**e and even with the knobblies on I have suffered more than my fair share of flats due to potholes, glass and all manner of people junk strewn in the road. What are you guys running. (My tricross NEVER goes off road. Got the Enduro for That )

brixtonbiker66

Continental Sport contacts, Get a year punture protection free replacement, grippy and fast. Look good as well.

Remember bicycle tires on the road do not need any tread patten. The smoother the tyre the more contact patch they have with the road. Tread is only need on cars because at the certain speeds in the wet they aquaplan. Bicycles do not reach these speeds and the tyres are so thin they cannot aqua plan.
Tread on road tyres for bikes is only put on becasue of marketing reasons.People expect to see it...
Look at a dry formular one car tyre completely smooth for best grip. Treaded tyres only get put on in the wet.

Knobblies (off road tyres) have spikesof rubber to dig into mud. On the road with knobbies you have far less grip because only a tiny bit of rubber is touching the road, the knobbies flex when you cycle and this uses up alot of your energy and make the bike squirm around.

A high pressure road tyre with also make your wheel stronger and will resist puntures far better becasue its harder for an object to penatrate it harder surface.

http://www.conti-tyres.co.uk/conticycle ... tact.shtml

artaxerxes

Schwalbe Marathon (standard ones, not the Marathon Plus) 700 X 32 on the front and rear. Had these for over a year and done a couple of thousand miles with 0 punctures. Then last week I rode over a big piece of metal that tore a big hole in the rear tyre, but for some reason it didn't break through the inner tube.

So I moved the front tyre to the rear, and on the front I now have a
Schwalbe Marathon Racer (700 X 30).

simon_e

This crops up regularly. Try a search or these recent threads for starters:

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12607615

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12609606

tardington

I like the Halo Twin Rail tyres in various vile colours. They've got a puncture protection strip, but only come in 700 x roadie widths if you want the bright colours. They've got most other sizes in plain black though (26 as well).

alfablue

brixtonbiker66 wrote:

Continental Sport contacts, Get a year punture protection free replacement, grippy and fast. Look good as well.

If you buy these you will need the guarantee as they will puncture often, and they will wear fast, only the guarantee is useless, unless you want to go in to the LBS every time you get a puncture - more likely you'll need to fix it and get on with cycling - an empty marketing ploy and no substitute for tyres that don't cut up, wear fast and puncture often, which these do. I quit with these after 4 months, by which time they couldn't have paid me to accept a replacement.

I now use Spesh All Conditions Pro's 26x1.0's and 700x23 - never, ever puncture.

vorsprung

You can have fast OR puncture resistant but not both

Well to be fair if you put a new set of Michellin Pro race on then you would have both
But they don't last as long as typical commuter tyres

I like the panaracer pasellas for a combination of long lasting/tough/fast

But on the commuter bike I don't care about absolute speed and I have the very heavy marathon plus tyres

markybhoy67

+1 and another +1 for marathon pluses

I have a fast hybrid which had conti contact sport and I had a couple of visits from the p fairy, moved over to pluses and all has been good for about 1000 miles (granted conti rolled just that we bit faster)

I bought a Felt Z35 racing bike at the end of last year but only got to try the bike out a couple of weeks ago due to various reasons, didn't like the tyres on it so I have just bought 700 x 25c pluses for this bike as well. ( I expect the pluses to be slower again but if I decide to do serious cycling then I will invest in a set of fast tyres and just swap them over)

I am not really bothered about speed, my main concern is p protection and I give the plus the thumbs up all day long

tardington

For punc protection the marathon plusses seem to be the business - certainly in town where there is lots of broken glass. For the last month though I've been going along out of town roads, on tyres with no puncture protection and had none!

If you are wanting the speed of the faster (and lighter) tyres you should go for it - Overall a couple mins spent fixing a flat should even out the generally faster commute!

biondino

Is our thread starter the Yorkshire Ripper??

dac73

I personally rate the Panaracer Ribmos. I ride approx 150 miles a week on London roads and they work a treat!

thrope

I have the conti travel contacts... I find them pretty quick - but have never tried proper slicks - but they certainly never puncture.... It's great I can just ride through broken glass and everything without any problems.... 1500 miles and the moulding nodules are still on...

So highly recommended for the city - they are completely smooth in the center, with chunks on the edge, so their not completely useless when you go on grass/gravel...

marksteven

ive done a couple of thousand miles on my conti TOP CONTACT 700/28 only been beaten by 2 really nasty thorns i live in kent where its really flinty you get loads of puntures on normal tyres even mich krylions which are really good to the flints burrow into your tyres as you roll along , they roll quite well not heavy unlike marathon plus tyres nearly went 4 them but they'r heavy

amircp

-1 for Schwalbe Marathons - 4 punctures in 1200 miles

The complaining tadpole

Schwalbe Marathons with kevlar protection - hopeless!

Schwalbe Marathon Plus with SmartGuard - unbeatable in my opinion.
700x25 on my roadie at 125psi. Yes they are a sod to fit but once on you wont need to take them off in a hurry. They are also very, very heavy but as stated before use that
for extra training! I ride over some very rural roads that hav'nt seen a workman for
years, potholes, cracks, tree roots lifting the road surface from underneath & the Marathon + takes this with ease.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

The complaining tadpole wrote:

Schwalbe Marathons with kevlar protection - hopeless!

Schwalbe Marathon Plus with SmartGuard - unbeatable in my opinion.
700x25 on my roadie at 125psi.

You do know the 25s have a recommended max of 115? At least mine do, anyway, still serving me well since late summer last year. The max rating are pretty conservative, but I hope for your sake, your route has much smoother roads than I face in Southampton!

The complaining tadpole

I'll check mine when I get home, the 700x28 on my hybrid are 100psi - I think!
Could be my eyes :shock: Either way they hav'nt let me down yet.
Apart from the obvious is there any danger in exceeding the max.psi?

markybhoy67

The complaining tadpole wrote:

Schwalbe Marathons with kevlar protection - hopeless!

Schwalbe Marathon Plus with SmartGuard - unbeatable in my opinion.
700x25 on my roadie at 125psi. Yes they are a sod to fit but once on you wont need to take them off in a hurry. They are also very, very heavy but as stated before use that
for extra training! I ride over some very rural roads that hav'nt seen a workman for
years, potholes, cracks, tree roots lifting the road surface from underneath & the Marathon + takes this with ease.

Excellent, that's the review that I was hoping for for the 25c pluses.

My tyres have just arrived today so I will get them on the bike for the weekend.

Will give an update on them next week.

amircp

I have had my 25mm marathons inflated to 110 psi. Now going to replace them with Stelvio Plus. Hopefully will be faster and more puncture proof.

biondino

It's like you all hate speed.

roger_merriman

biondino wrote:

It's like you all hate speed.

heh well thats the trade off, isn't it loose a bit of speed for fairy protection, and you can bet she'll call on a dark wet night when your late already....

singlespeedexplosif

Conti Gatorskins. Fast, puncture proof*, enough grip for a bit of offroad too. I mix up my ride into Manc between road and offroad and very rarely have any problems.


* well, not puncture proof, that would suggest I never puncture. Looking at the training diary, I average about 4000km between punctures. So you still get them, but not that often.

cjcp

roger merriman wrote:

biondino wrote:

It's like you all hate speed.

heh well thats the trade off, isn't it loose a bit of speed for fairy protection, and you can bet she'll call on a dark wet night when your late already....

All, in, the legs. And lungs.

+1 for the Gatorskins.

cjcp

double post

itboffin

At what point do you consider your tyres to be too cut, slit and pierced to use?

cjcp

itboffin wrote:

At what point do you consider your tyres to be too cut, slit and pierced to use?

The number of punctures increase or start getting a wave of them. Depends on the size of the cuts. Bare patches. If the cuts pierce the tyre wall. Until you think, "oh, for the love of Chri*st! Not again!" when you get another p******e on the commute.


That post really does lack structure.

itboffin

cjcp wrote:

itboffin wrote:

At what point do you consider your tyres to be too cut, slit and pierced to use?

The number of punctures increase or start getting a wave of them. Depends on the size of the cuts. Bare patches. If the cuts pierce the tyre wall. Until you think, "oh, for the love of Chri*st! Not again!" when you get another p******e on the commute.


That post really does lack structure.

Trouble is I love the handling grip and ride from those tyres but yesterday I took a shortcut home along a private road in the forest where the forestry commission have been hard at work, trees down all over the very potholed and broken road I now have hundreds of small nicks

FyPunK

I use Conti City contact for the summer months and Conti Contacts for winter. City's are quick enough with loads of grip and come in a good range of sizes.

markybhoy67

biondino wrote:

It's like you all hate speed.

I have a ridgeback nemesis with 26 x 1.75 pluses pumped up to about 80 -85 psi and I also have a felt z35 with 700 x 25c with vittorrio or something tyres(although I am about to put 700 x 25c pluses on this as well) pumped up to about 120 psi

There is a steep downhill on my commute into work that I can hit 34 on the hybrid but I can only hit about 38 on the felt.

Granted the felt runs faster on the flats but not by an amount that makes me feel that the hybrid is slow even with pluses on it.

I will post a comparison between the vittorrio and the pluses to see if there is a big difference in speed.

cjcp

markybhoy67 wrote:

[quote="biondino"I will post a comparison between the vittorrio and the pluses to see if there is a big difference in speed.

Might be the difference in effort. A better comparison miught be your average speed over a week. I thought about doing it one week for Krylions and the second week for Gatorskins. We could be getting into geek territory here... :oops:

markybhoy67

cjcp wrote:

markybhoy67 wrote:

[quote="biondino"I will post a comparison between the vittorrio and the pluses to see if there is a big difference in speed.

Might be the difference in effort. A better comparison miught be your average speed over a week. I thought about doing it one week for Krylions and the second week for Gatorskins. We could be getting into geek territory here... :oops:

Yip, does seem to be heading that way

I was close to getting the schwalbe ultremo r for roughly the same price as the pluses, I know that they would defo run faster but as I am not in a club then I just thought that I would prefer the p protection.

My other option was the stelvio pluses but I couldn't find the in 700 x 25 when I ordered the pluses, since found where to order them :?

See what happens, may buy one of the other options if I decide to try and better my times in the future.