Suggest best tyre width for commuting on mtb

Daan Hammond

I'm planning to switch my knobblies to slicks to use my mtb for getting to work on.

Any ideas what the optimum width would be for slicks. Have seen some bargainous Conti GPs but they are one inch only. Is likely to be too narrow? Any thoughts appreciated.

My route is mixed in terms of road quality!

Cheers,

Dan

Wooliferkins

Useful table HERE scroll down to Width Considerations. 1.5" usually does it.

Daan Hammond

Cheers - thanks for that!

The Rookie

I suspect the conti's will be too narrow for your rims, they are too narrow for mine. The rim internal width needs to be 17mm or less, the common 'narrow' 26" MTB wheel is 19mm), so I'm running 1.3" WTB slickasaurus although there are other good offerings in that size (notably from Schwalbe), the daughter is running some Budget 1.95" Bronx on her MTB commuter, but they are heavy although pretty bombproof.

Simon

cbkN258

Very nice post. This will help possible client to get a quality person.

ride_whenever

Fit big slicks (balloon tyres) they'll be more comfortable, and the speed difference over skinny slicks is minimal.

Daan Hammond

Cheers for all the comments. I bought Vittoria Randonneurs which are 26 x 1.5, in the end. They go up to 95 psi, have a reflective band and where £10 each at Decathlon when I was there last week so will give them a try. Athough they do not seem featherweight I hope that they will be durable and quicker than the big fat stock knobbly tiogas.

The Rookie

That's a very good price!

They don't need to be as heavy as off road tyres often are, although for road tyres my WTB's are a realtively portly 540g each.

Simon