road tyres for mtb

Stuart Ross

Hi
I'm finding that I cycle on the road most of the time and after looking on these forums am going to buy a pair of marathon plus tyres. My question is what width tyre should I get ? The tyres on the mtb are 1.95" so 1.75" would be the closest size but I am wondering whether I could use narrower tyres such as the 1.35" on the wheels to give much less rolling resistance. Would there be any disadvantages to doing this and would I need narrower inner tubes ?
Thanks for any help.
Stuart

downfader

Usually I think most rims will take around 1 to 1.5 times the width in tyres, If 1.35 is a little over they should stick on fine. You prolly wont need to change the tubes either unless they're really fat.

Mr_Cellophane

I dropped my tyres from 26x1.95 to 26x1.25. I don't seem to have gained much speed, but certainly reduced the effort and road noise. Got new inner tubes as well.

Rockbuddy

Are you running nobblies on the mtb? The rolling resistance won't be that much less with the marathon plus. I would try slicks rather than semi slicks, the city jets are well recommended slicks and would be faster than the marathon's. I have some 1.5" city jets on my old mtb and the difference from my 2.1" nobblies was about an average 2-3mph faster (with similar effort). The big tip though is to keep them at the max pressure on the road to get the best speed from them. Oh and you shouldn't need narrower tubes as there is quite a wide range in their fit, usually 1.5"-2.5" unless you want to go much smaller (check the box if your worried).

snooks

+1 for the Schwalbe City Jets, not the lightest, but they do have a nice thick bit of rubber to stop glass going all the way to the tube

Stuart Ross

Thanks for the replies. I am running knobblies at the moment. I used to commute 11 miles each way on fairly flat roads so didn't mind the extra effort needed with the knobbly tyres but having changed jobs the commute will be 15 miles each way with a very large hill so I need every advantage I can get ! I was thinking of the marathon pluses because of their puncture resistance as I will cycling largely on country lanes which have various thorns on the road especially after hedge cutting. I will take a look at the city jets though.

Thanks again

Stuart

girv73

I went from 26x2.1 knobblies to 26x1.25 slicks (Conti Gatorskins). They fit the rims perfectly well, but I needed new inner tubes.

Stuart Ross

Thanks girv73 I will look at those as well

Stuart

Fireblade96

I use Specialized Nimbus 1.5s on the commuter - much faster than knobblies, meant to be p*ncture resistant but I had a spate of PF attacks just after fitting them.

Then they seemed to calm down....I guess sacrificing several inner tubes was sufficient to placate them....

Jay dubbleU

I would go for Marathons rather than Marathon plus - lighter and better control - I've had mine since Xmas with no visits from the PF - I'm running 26x1.5 which seem to be reasonably quiet and as fast as the Maxxis Detonators which I had before.