On Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 8:47:56 AM UTC-8, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-02-11 15:05, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Monday, February 11, 2019 at 2:43:17 PM UTC-5, duane wrote:
On 11/02/2019 2:36 p.m., Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Monday, February 11, 2019 at 12:47:34 PM UTC-5, duane wrote:
On 11/02/2019 10:28 a.m., Joerg wrote:
On 2019-02-10 06:52, Duane wrote:
wrote:
On Saturday, February 9, 2019 at 7:56:22 PM UTC+1, Joerg
wrote:
On 2019-02-09 09:52, wrote:


I learned pretty soon that paying more than $20 for a
road bike tire is a waste of money. In fact, they can
be worse than expensive tires. Similar for MTB tires.

That depends on your riding conditions and requirements.
I ride on good roads on my road bikes and get 4500 km out
of a Continental 4000S(2) rear tire and expect the same
from the 5000 so price is not that important.

Lou



I get about the same mileage and very few flats. I think
I’ve had one flat in the last 10,000km and that was a tube
giving out when I hit a pothole hard. I ride on roads but
I can’t say they’re always good roads.

Maybe Joerg is riding his road bike on single track
carrying 4 gallons of water or something...


No but lots of hills. That seems to cause a lot more rear
tire wear than riding in flat lands. Some roads aren't that
great and some are unpaved where the fancy expensive tires
failed in their side walls too often. For example, when I
tested Gatorskins three out of four prematurely failed with
side wall damage. One actually blew a big hole out its side.
Vee Rubber tires and many others do much better in that
domain. They are more sturdy. So now I am buying those which
has also brought a nice cost reduction.


Use what you want but your experience is not my experience. I
do a fair bit of climbing and on some pretty crappy roads but I
still get close to 5000km on a pair of Conti GPS 4000 tires.
Works for me.

I too have no problems with my tires and I ride Northern Ontario
Canada mining roads that are barely maintained and in a lot of
places are like Joerg's roads. However, I do take care not to run
over big sharp rocks if I can possible avoid it. Maybe the threat
of having to walk for days to a road with motor traffic causes me
to be a bit more careful of my bike and equipment? I'd hate to
have to walk t0 of there pushing a bicycle simply because I did
not want to ride a bit slower. Remember too that my bicycle there
has about 40 pounds of gear on it. I carry a spare folding tire
just in case but thus far in over 20 years have never needed to
replace a tire when touring on those roads.

Joerg's world is different from anyone else's which is why he
needs extra special stuff.

Cheers


I don't do touring any more so I don't know what Joerg's issues
are. I carry a couple of tubes with me and a patch kit. I used to
get a lot of flats with cheap tires. Now they're rare. Quality
tires are worth the money.

But according to Joerg it's the expensive tires that give him the
most trouble.


That was so far my experience. I used to like Vredestein, Continental
and others. Then the sidewalls became ever flimsier, maybe because they
wanted to eke out the last fraction of a percent in rolling resistance.

After moving to Asian tires for both the road bike and the MTB the
problem of blown sidewalls has largely disappeared. It just happens to
be that those tires are also much less expensive which isn't the main
reason for me but it sure is a pleasant side effect.

Interestingly, a similar effect happened with disc brake pads. It always
irked me that they cost north of $15/pair at the LBS while lasting only
around 500-800mi on the front of my MTB. Then I found some from
Hangzhou-Novich that seem to have a material more like what is used for
motorcycles. Around $2/pair, great modulation and they last 1000mi.


I find that better quality tires give better feel on and to the road.
Also in winter in snow quality REALLY trumps the el cheapo tires on
many bicycles. The knobs on el cheapo tires freeze in the deep cold
and then act like skate blades with no traction at all. I found that
out 50+ years ago whilst winter commuting in Toronto Canada.


Vee Rubber didn't exist 50 years ago. Suggest to try again.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I just ordered another pair of cheap Chinese carbon tubeless wheels. Since I will have a set of new Continental GP5000TL's and since MUCH to my surprise a tubeless tire actually is not as tight on a tubeless rim as a standard clincher I am going to try and blame my other carbon tubeless failures on the tires and not on the wheelset.

So after I get everything and assemble them and REALLY check them out for failures I will keep everyone apprised of how things are going. The 40 mm deep clinchers at less than half of the cost of a cheap Fulcrum aluminum wheelset us still working really well. I really like both the way they ride and the far more aero design that does NOTHING to destabilize the steering in cross-winds.

Fingers crossed.