Skinny wheels

JamesPearson

What are the skinniest 26 in rims and tyres? I have just purchased a nice DH/freeride bike and am thinking of using my existing hard tail for road riding for keeping fit.

thanks for any advice

James

Daz555

I have never really bought into the skinny tyre thing - great if you are a high-speed roadie who needs to be concerned about aerodynamics, but otherwise just uncomfortable and lacking in grip.

Most MTB rims will take a 1" or thereabouts tyre if that's what you want. My last set of commuter tyres were semi-slick 26x1.5. Comfortable AND fast.

supersonic

16 to 17mm are about the narrowest internal width for a rim, which is fine for a 1 inch tyre. You can't fit one ince tyres to really wide DH rims though!

Narrower tyres are lighter, and can be inflated to higher pressures.

bomberesque

for bangiong along the road, I'd go with 1" slicks on narrow XC rims. If you have discs, you could also consider something like Mavic Speed City 700C disc wheels, but you can probably do better (ie cheaper and just as nice) hunting down a pair of disc cyclo-cross wheels, although I'm not sure on rear hub spacing (road is 130, MTB 135, yeah?)

Anyway Mavic Speed city are 135mm MTB hub spacing 700c disc wheels. I'd go with them if converting an MTB for road use. Otherwise narrow XC rims and 1" slicks

1.5" slicks are much (MUCH) comfier though, my choice for commuting.

or fit Schwalbe 2" Big apples to your DH bike for that Super-motard look

ride_whenever

big fat smooth tyres are awesome for riding around on. I rate the tioga FS100 'cos they're really cheap!