Best tyres

Fuji-John

I use the MTB to cycle to work and doing xc and downhill stuff,
My bike came with conti speedkings 2.1 and I don't like them what's the best all round tyre?
The only one I've found is the panaracer xc fire pro folding tyre,

cooldad

There is no such thing.

Shocker_33

What cooldad is very true. You will always suffer in one area..... As you're wanting a tyre to be good at two opposite extremes.

You can probably figure out the pro's and con's for running each type of tyre with each different style of riding.

But if you are determined on trying to get an all rounder.....

Personally i think i would go for a hard-ish compounded XC tyre at 26x2.1. That way you have a long lasting tyre for the roads but it will have the tread for XC. The tyre would be a little thin for downhill but you could manage. The rolling resistance on the road and the extra grip for downhill will just have to suffer.

You could go for a soft-ish compound but the tyres will wear out quickly on the road, so you won't get too many miles out of them. The rolling resistance on the road will be even high but you will have a bit of extra grip for downhill.


If i was to do this, and i wanted the least amount of tyre swapping between rides, i would get two sets of tyres.

1 set being a good all rounder between XC and downhill. And the other set being a good road tyre.
OR
1 set being a good all rounder between XC and the road. And the other set being a good downhill tyre.

nozzac

Fuji-John wrote:

I use the MTB to cycle to work and doing xc and downhill stuff,
My bike came with conti speedkings 2.1 and I don't like them what's the best all round tyre?
The only one I've found is the panaracer xc fire pro folding tyre,

What don't you like about them?

Fuji-John

While doing anything off road they don't seem to grip very well and they puncture pretty easily, I have messed about adjusting my pressures and suspension but I just have no confidence in them especially in the mud when it's wet ( how I came off last time).

Northwind

There's no tyre that's good at XC, commuting and downhill. Simple as that. But, depends on what you mean by "downhill stuff", if you mean trail centre style descents then that's different.

You need to decide where you want to make the sacrifice- grip offroad or drag and weight onroad. Personally I'd choose sweat on road over crashing offroad

Fuji-John

I would be happy to compromise on the road to increase off road performance.
Yeah I do mean trail centre stuff.

CharlieH

Northwind wrote:

There's no tyre that's good at XC, commuting and downhill. Simple as that. But, depends on what you mean by "downhill stuff", if you mean trail centre style descents then that's different.

You need to decide where you want to make the sacrifice- grip offroad or drag and weight onroad. Personally I'd choose sweat on road over crashing offroad

Thats what I thought so I went for 2.35 maxxis high rollers on the full sus. My HT has 2.1 high rollers. My full sus grips great down trails, wet rocks and roots etc but feels a drag going uphill. My HT is 3lb HEAVIER than the full sus but climbs so much better. However the HT is very scary in wet/rocky conditions as there seems like there's no grip at all

In an ideal world I'd have two wheel sets with different tyres depending on what I was doing and then swap them between bikes

cycle monster

Genius CharlieH! I was wondering about having different tyres for the wet and dry but fearful of all the faff around constantly swapping them. Completely separate wheel sets - now we are talking, we are now one short step away from having four bikes - one for each season. Please tell me how to justify this to the Mrs.

Shocker_33

If you have different wheels, are you going to have two cassettes and two chains? Or are you going to change the cassette between each wheel? If you have disc brakes, same applies to them. Are you going to have two sets of discs.



Personally i have a hybrid that i use for a little road cycling and real easy off-road in the dry. I now want to use it XC off-road properly, so i've decided to purchase another set of wheels. What i'm going to do is purchase another set of discs and fix them on permanently. So between different styles of riding, all i need to do is swap the cassette over from wheel to wheel.
If you do go down the two set of wheels route, i would suggest the same. I've thought about this long and hard for the past 2 or 3 weeks. In my mind it seems to be the option that gives the least amount of hassle and exactly what i want. The initial outlay of cash is a little bit extra but i think its worth it.

CharlieH

Shocker_33 wrote:

If you have different wheels, are you going to have two cassettes and two chains? Or are you going to change the cassette between each wheel? If you have disc brakes, same applies to them. Are you going to have two sets of discs.



Personally i have a hybrid that i use for a little road cycling and real easy off-road in the dry. I now want to use it XC off-road properly, so i've decided to purchase another set of wheels. What i'm going to do is purchase another set of discs and fix them on permanently. So between different styles of riding, all i need to do is swap the cassette over from wheel to wheel.
If you do go down the two set of wheels route, i would suggest the same. I've thought about this long and hard for the past 2 or 3 weeks. In my mind it seems to be the option that gives the least amount of hassle and exactly what i want. The initial outlay of cash is a little bit extra but i think its worth it.

Lol, I didn't say I have two sets, I think my wife would kill me. FWIW i do have the same rear mech, cassette and brakes on both bikes so in theory, as long as I set the calipers up the same, swapping between shouldn't be a problem. If I ever win the lottery, I'll let you know how it works out.

Northwind

I used to do the one-bike, 4-wheels thing but it was a pain in the bum. So instead, I revitalised my ancient, abandoned 90s mtb and put it on the road, for the grand sum of £40. Works better all round- saves wear and tear on the expensive bike (7-speed chains and cassettes are dirt cheap!), less nickable, and less hassle.

Course, you might not have a festering 90s piece of crap in the garage, but they're not hard to come by For commuter bikes Gumtree's fantastic, I picked up a beaten-up Revolution Courier Race for my brother for £50, lovely bit of kit.