Best Size road tires for Mountain Bike?

Hey everyone.

I've decided to add some skinnier tires to my Gary Fisher Marlin
mountain bike for riding around town. But how thin should I go?

The wheels are 26" and I've found tires online as small as 1" wide. I'm
tempted by these because I love going fast and want to get the best bang
for my buck. Still, I'm worried these might be a little too thin and be
prone to flats. I probably couldn't do much curb jumping, either.

Right now I've got 2.10" tires on there and they really suck on the
pavement (which is where most of my riding is done). I may occasionally
go on the trails, but that'd be probably less than 5% of my riding.

Anyhow, if anyone has any suggestions on good road tires that'll work
for mountain bikes, let me know.

Thanks!

(Bill Henry) wrote:
Hey everyone.

I've decided to add some skinnier tires to my Gary Fisher Marlin
mountain bike for riding around town. But how thin should I go?

The wheels are 26" and I've found tires online as small as 1" wide. I'm
tempted by these because I love going fast and want to get the best bang
for my buck. Still, I'm worried these might be a little too thin and be
prone to flats. I probably couldn't do much curb jumping, either.

Right now I've got 2.10" tires on there and they really suck on the
pavement (which is where most of my riding is done). I may occasionally
go on the trails, but that'd be probably less than 5% of my riding.

Anyhow, if anyone has any suggestions on good road tires that'll work
for mountain bikes, let me know.

You may want to look at cyclocross tires. They're typically not too
wide (the widest I'm aware of are maybe 35mm, quite a lot less than
your 2.10's) and the contact patch is relatively treadless, like a
road tire - but they've got a bit of knobs on the sides. I'm currently
using kevlar-belted 30mm Ritchey Speedmax (Cross) Pro tires on my
'cross bike, which sees mostly highway miles with a little bit of
everything else thrown in for fun. Those, I think, only come in
700c, not 26" - but there are probably similar things in your size.

--
Dan Birchall - http://danbirchall.multiply.com/ - images, words, technology

You can go for 1.95" no problem for mountain bike.

The drag on tires varies considerably with brand. Cheng Shin is
probably the champion for high-drag tires. They last forever.

The wider tires give a smoother ride. In fact that's why I dropped
the road bike for a MTB, just for street riding. I mean, what's
the hurry.
--
Ron Hardin


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Bill Henry wrote:
Hey everyone.

I've decided to add some skinnier tires to my Gary Fisher Marlin
mountain bike for riding around town. But how thin should I go?

The wheels are 26" and I've found tires online as small as 1" wide.

Don't use too narrow a tire on wide. I think that your rim is 30mm.
1.95" is fine, 1.5" will likely work too, but 1" should be avoided.

What's your rim width?

It's in vogue to ship MTBs with narrow rims for weight saving.
Though this puts an upper limit on tire width, it lets you go with skinny,
high pressure tires for road use.

I have a "mountain" bike here but the rims are either 17 or 19mm width
(depending on how you measure). The stock tires were 1.95's (54mm?) but I'm
good to 28 or 25mm (eg: as narrow as an inch)

Tires I'm considering that you might look at as well:

Continental Grand Prix
Continental Sport Contact
Schwalbe Marathon (touring type tread) or Marathon Slick

C.


"Bill Henry" wrote in message
...
Hey everyone.

I've decided to add some skinnier tires to my Gary Fisher Marlin mountain
bike for riding around town. But how thin should I go?

The wheels are 26" and I've found tires online as small as 1" wide. I'm
tempted by these because I love going fast and want to get the best bang
for my buck. Still, I'm worried these might be a little too thin and be
prone to flats. I probably couldn't do much curb jumping, either.

Right now I've got 2.10" tires on there and they really suck on the
pavement (which is where most of my riding is done). I may occasionally
go on the trails, but that'd be probably less than 5% of my riding.

Anyhow, if anyone has any suggestions on good road tires that'll work for
mountain bikes, let me know.

Thanks!

Bill Henry wrote:

Hey everyone.

I've decided to add some skinnier tires to my Gary Fisher Marlin
mountain bike for riding around town. But how thin should I go?

The wheels are 26" and I've found tires online as small as 1" wide. I'm
tempted by these because I love going fast and want to get the best bang
for my buck. Still, I'm worried these might be a little too thin and be
prone to flats. I probably couldn't do much curb jumping, either.

Right now I've got 2.10" tires on there and they really suck on the
pavement (which is where most of my riding is done). I may occasionally
go on the trails, but that'd be probably less than 5% of my riding.

Anyhow, if anyone has any suggestions on good road tires that'll work
for mountain bikes, let me know.

I've run high-pressure slicks on my MTB in "urban mode" as small as
1", but the ones I currently run are 1.75" Panaracer T-Servs. I've
found that while the skinnier ones do roll a little faster, the fatter
tires provide the ability to do a LOT more dumb things without
worrying so much about snakebiting or denting rims. If you're even
tempted to do "curb jumping", I'd recommend something with a little
more width than the really skinny slicks.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

Bill Henry wrote:
(Tire suggestion request).

When I had a 26" wheel bike, I used to get these Avocet 26x1.5 tires
that looked like slicks except for this zig-zagging chasm down the
middle. I forget the model name/number. I'd guess the tread depth was
1/4" to 3/8" deep. They were GREAT for straightaway street riding, but
a bit heavy because the rubber was so thick. They were so-so, but
rideable, for "getting from point A to point B" offroad patches and
worked adequately on the occasional gravel road. In a way, that was an
advantage because casual thorn penetration wasn't so much of a problem.
In wet conditions, they were sometimes problematic when cornering
because the edge of the tire was so square -- but that was a very rare
problem.

Robert Leone

Bill Henry says...

Hey everyone.

I've decided to add some skinnier tires to my Gary Fisher Marlin
mountain bike for riding around town. But how thin should I go?

The wheels are 26" and I've found tires online as small as 1" wide. I'm
tempted by these because I love going fast and want to get the best bang
for my buck. Still, I'm worried these might be a little too thin and be
prone to flats. I probably couldn't do much curb jumping, either.

Right now I've got 2.10" tires on there and they really suck on the
pavement (which is where most of my riding is done). I may occasionally
go on the trails, but that'd be probably less than 5% of my riding.

Anyhow, if anyone has any suggestions on good road tires that'll work
for mountain bikes, let me know.

Thanks!

Lots of bad advice so far (sorry guys, but most of it was wrong), but as
somebody who is in the same boat, I'll tell you what I know. First of
all, high quality slicks in MTB size are rare to nonexistent. There are
lots of cheap and heavy ones. For example, none that I know of has a
high thread count. Some are light, like the Hutchinson Top Slick, but
according to MTBR, they don't hold up well to wear or flats. Some are
heavy and impervious, like the Geax Streetrunner at 800g, which would be
weight penalty of more than a half pound per tire over a decent
lightweight knobby. I have used Michelin Jet S tires for the last two
years. This is a high grade cross-country semi-slick racing tire that
is light with a high thread count. Unfortunately, they are still knobby
on the sides, which makes high speed cornering dicey at best, and they
are now discontinued. As far as width goes, you have your choice of 1"
to more than 2", with the width closely related to the final weight.
Don't worry about rim width conflicting with tire width unless you have
very wide downhill or freeride rims. IMO, you may want to think twice
about using a very small tire since it will partly negate one of the
best aspects of using a MTB on the street--the ability to soak up road
hazards the way a road bike can't. There are lots of choices and they
are comparatively cheap because they aren't competition quality.
Nashbar has a variety of inexpensive ones, and biketiresdirect.com has a
few higher end ones in their touring tire section. Pay attention to the
weights and widths. The Vredestein S-Lick appears to be one of the
nicest ones all around.

wrote:

You can go for 1.95" no problem for mountain bike.

RedCloud dead wrong, as usual.