Kenda KWest Tyres - Thoughts?

meanredspider

A colleague is doing a C2C ride on a hybrid and was asking my opinion on tyres. She has these Kenda tyres on that I've never heard of so I'm loathe to suggest swapping them. They seem to sell at around the £15-17 mark which, in my experience, is in the "plausibly OK" range. Anybody any views on them?

roger_merriman

meanredspider wrote:

A colleague is doing a C2C ride on a hybrid and was asking my opinion on tyres. She has these Kenda tyres on that I've never heard of so I'm loathe to suggest swapping them. They seem to sell at around the £15-17 mark which, in my experience, is in the "plausibly OK" range. Anybody any views on them?

Kenda seem to do ok OEM tyres had kenda stuff on my CX and SS roadie in both cases the tyres where tough as old boots though somewhat stiff ride, and mildly slower than posher tyres that I replaced them with.

the other question is what sort of rider is your colleague?

meanredspider

I'm not sure how to answer that question. They are doing 60-70 miles a day if that gives some idea of their capability and their total journey (further than just C2C) is expected to take 7 days. So speed probably isn't the factor and the current tyres are 32c

Nellyspania

Be aware that there are Kwests with and without puncture protection.

The ones without are diabolical and only good for puncture repair practice!

veronese68

I was just thinking puncture protection was going to be more of a consideration by the sound of it. Never tried the tyres so can't comment I'm afraid.

rhodrich

For what it's worth, I've recently been commuting on my by Dawes 'Chevron' that's fitted with 27" wheels. As a stop gap measure to replace the original perished tyres, I fitted the wheels with Continental Top Touring tyres that I seem to remember purchasing back in 1995, long before puncture protection belts were all the rage.

In 2800 miles of commuting in London, I've had 3 punctures on these tyres, all on the back tyre. One of these was a snakebite puncture caused by a pothole. The other was a huge drywall screw that would have gone through anything, and the final one was a flint.

This average of about 1 puncture per 1000 miles is no different from my other fixed gear bike, which has Schwalbe Durano's on it. I don't think that puncture protection belts really make that much of a difference, until you move onto heavy duty tyres like Schwalbe Marathons, which weigh a ton, and are quite unpleasant to ride on.

I'm sure the Kenda Kwests will be fine.

drlodge

I read this as Kanye West tyres and thought pile of cr@p!

meanredspider

She's only had one puncture to date (though I don't know how many miles she's done on them - though she's commuting about 20 miles per day)