Tyres for road use on mountain bike

Spanky

Hi,

I need some skinny slicks for my old (1996) cannondale so I can get training on the road with the weather closing in.

How can I tell if the 1.1" Schwalble Durano tyres I was looking at will be ok on my rims? I was going to niavely assume it would be fine but it seemed a better idea to check first!

I assume there is a maximum width rim you can use with any tyre I just have no idea what that is. I'd like to use the skinniest tyre possible so I can get as close to road bike pace as possible, without having to fork out for one.

Also, does anyone have any experience with getting 26" road wheels? If such a thing exist! I'd like a nice light weight set for my bike but don't fancy the £700 needed for some Mavic Crossmax SLRs! May as well just get a new bike at that point.

Cheers.

blister pus

depends what 26" rims you've got but even if you could a 1.1 on an mtb would be hell on the road i could think of nothing more uncomfortable. minimum i'd use, and have used, is a 1.6. conti travel contact or something like that i'd be looking at

bikerbart

I put Schwalbe City Jet 26 x 1.5 on my Gary Fisher Advance for the same reason, they work a treat. Great price if you reserve on line from Halfords

nick1962

Been using these
http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/randonneu ... -17866786/
for almost couple of years on my converted MTB for my daily commute,still going strong.Recommended

tomtomthepipersson

I used to use Specialized Fatboys - very thin and really quick. http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBC ... spid=57657

Also used Specialized Hemispheres for a while - a bit more forgiving but still pretty nippy tyres:
http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBC ... Id=0&eid=0

Spanky

Cheers for the info guys.

I found a site that suggested a bar minimum of 1.45 (seems very exact) times the inner width of your rims. So an x17 mavic rim could run 1" tyres in theory.

Even if it's not going to be the most pleaseuarable experience.

tomtom - how good (or bad) are the fat boys in the wet? I've always assumed slicks would be terrible but then someone pointed out to me that the 2mm of tread (max) on skinny tyres is going to do almost nothing to help you anyway.

tomtomthepipersson

They were absolutely fine in the wet.

Being so thin (and having them pumped up really hard) pot holes were a bit of a nuisance - and hit any sort of debris or gravel and things would get a bit hairy. But you quickly became expert in avoiding such things.

daccordimark

Slicks are what you want for a road tyre - more rubber in contact with the tarmac.
Bikes don't aqua-plane so no tread required.

The Rookie

I have near true slick WTB slickasaurus on my commuter, 26x1.5", no problems in the wet, I run at 80psi.

I have some 26x1" continentals to try when I feel brave!

Simon

schweiz

I ran Fat Boys for years during my time 'in-between' road bikes.

I had no problems with grip. The only problem I noticed that was I had a rim failure around the eyelets. It was a Mavic Rim but I can't remember the type. I read somewhere that this could have been a result of the the fact that MTB rims are not built to cope with the higher pressures (70-90 psi). This was after about 8 years though, and the braking surface was knackered anyway after a coming together with a rock.

Spanky

I was thinking about some Specialized All Condition Pro 2's. Mainly due to the lazy-ness factor of being able to get them easily and need to go to a bike shop to get a track pump anyway. Don't fancy trying to get them up to 100 psi with a little hand pump.

The all conditions also seem to be pretty light and I'd like to get my 28.5 ld old rigid Cannondale's weight down. Given the wire velociraptors on them at the moment I figure some lightweight folding slicks has to be good for 1.5lds weight saving.

Cracking around the eyelets doesn't sound good but the rims I have seem pretty solid. Good ol' fashion Mavic 238's. So hopefully I'll be ok on that, but will keep an eye on them.