Road Tyres for MTB

bungle73

Atm, for road use, I have a pair of Specialized Nimbus EX 1.5" slicks that I bought many years ago. What I'm wondering is if I swapped to a different, more modern, possibly thinner, set of tyres would I see any noticeable difference?

I was looking at the Schwalbe Duranos, which someone was raving about how fast they are over on Amazon. Worth it, or something else, or stick with what I've got?

I have noticed some cracks in the tyres' side walls (as I said they're old), so maybe I should replace them anyway?

Thoughts?

The Rookie

The Nimbus are the worst of the 26x1.5" tyres I've used (on my commuter or on my daughters commuter), even £11ish Schwalbe City Jets are nicer, there are 4 i'd suggest you consider
1/ Panaracer RiBMo the funny shaped (V) tread means they run narrower than their 1.5" width and leaves lots for wear and puncture resistance, I have one on the rear of mine
2/Continental Sport Contact, very grippy and fast rolling, lot of spray though due to the minimalist tread, I run one on the front of my commuter
3/ Decathlon do a 1.2" very cheap (about £7) I've briefly tried them on a mates bike and they roll fast and felt good, no time to assess grip and didn't try them in the wet
4/ For the ultimate fast road 26" tyre try the Continental 1.0", quite a harsh ride though (even compared to the 80psi I run my 1.5" at), but feel very fast (very light as well), more puncture prone due to the thinner tread and also feel skittish when it's damp.

bungle73

Thanks. I'll look into the ones you mentioned.

snowster

+1 for City Jets 5600+ Miles and still going and only one puncture thanks to Farmer Joe...

bungle73

I decided to go with the Schwalbe Kojaks. I wonder if they come with a lollipop? :P

bungle73

So, was that a good choice (I went for the 1.35 version), or should I have gone for something like the Continental Grands Prix? But they seem to have quite a few cons.

The Rookie

I've not tried the Kojaks but they are Schwalbe and they make very few duds and their compounds are usually good, the 1.35" will give you a slight aero advantage over a 1.5" but will only really become relevant above about 16-17mph..

bungle73

Ordered Saturday - delivered Monday morning. Excellent service from Wiggle again.

They do seem quite a bit faster than the Numbuses. There's a road local to my house where I've been testing my speed, and according to my bike computer I am able to obtain a significantly higher speed with these. There are some mini-roundabouts that I need to slow down for, and with the other slicks I was able to keep accelerating until I needed to slow down for the first one. But with these I hit such a high speed before I got to them that I actually felt I needed to stop accelerating earlier because it felt too fast for the road (it's on a curve)!

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19729962#p19729962]The Rookie[/url] wrote:

I've not tried the Kojaks but they are Schwalbe and they make very few duds and their compounds are usually good, the 1.35" will give you a slight aero advantage over a 1.5" but will only really become relevant above about 16-17mph..

The Nimbuses are treaded where as these are pure slicks - that should make them faster, correct?

Edit: Oh, and these are quite a bit lighter than the other ones.

The Rookie

Rolling resistance will be fractionally (and I mean fractionally) lower on a full slick, aero will also be slightly better, but the biggest gain will come from the narrower tyre (aero - the Cd of a rolling tyre is dreadful, so a small change in width makes a big improvement) and the fact that the Nimbus seem to have a lot of hysteresis (rolling resistance) much more than any other 1.5" I've tried (including the budget CJ's).