BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Not a lot of choices in 42mm or larger, but there are a handful floating around out there. You are probably going to be limited to Schwalbe Marathon, Continental Touring Plus/Contact, Continental Tour Ride... Are you sure you can fit a tire that large on your bike? If you are riding aluminum, you may also want to consider picking up a steel frame down the road. Also keep in mind that no bike is going to be riding on a cloud over cobblestone.

I'd generally rather ride an empty sidewalk than ride cobbles. Downhill is the worst, naturally. You don't have to be a big guy to feel like things are going to fall apart doing that. Are cobbles unavoidable for your regular riding??

fatbike at 5psi is pretty much like riding on a cloud over cobbles. ;). But otherwise I agree, marginally wider tires or even 2"+ MTB tires aren't going to make a huge difference. I'm in that same size range and I ride 700x32 on my commuter bike. I ride the occasional cobbles and it is certainly bumpy but I don't think it is really hurting the bike. My bike is steel which does help absorb some shock but I don't think it is very significant over that size of bump. I agree riding downhill is unpleasant regardless (and dangerous when wet) - I almost never do it, uphill only.

@salty, good call on the fat bike! @cowchip, don't be afraid to shoehorn in the biggest tire your frame will allow, 3mm clearance is good enough for me. Obviously this will depend on your frame, and to a lesser extent, your rim width. For example, I run Schwalbe Big Apple 2.0's (with fenders) on my straggler, with a 23mm rim. People said it wouldn't work, but it does, like buttah.

Not a total answer of your issue but for short stretches of rough road you can unload your weight from the saddle too. If you need to keep pedaling - shift to a higher gear and stand up, or if you can coast - put your pedals at 9&3 and just raise up slightly so your but is in contact but not bearing weight. Learning to use your legs as shock absorbers will help make your riding more pleasant even with wider tires and such.

If you are using caliper brakes, make sure you will have the clearance you need there as well. It's true that we've got some real tooth rattling roads around here but a lot of the trouble can be alleviated by keeping your muscles and joints loose. (Same skill on skis too!) I use Michelin 700x32 tires. About the only thing I avoid that I might otherwise use is downhill on Joncaire.

Depends on frame clearance and type of riding you do. I really dig my clement MSO explorer 700x40c tires and surly knard 700x41c tires on my cx bikes. Great all purpose tires for road and trail use. These are the biggest tires that fit my frames. They definitely roll a bit slower than slicks, and you have to keep the pressure dialed in to what you prefer, but they feel nice. If you have clearance, I've heard awesome things about schwalbe big apples and bruce gordon rock n roads.

@ericf "People said it wouldn’t work, but it does, like buttah." I think the main concern is that you have no margin for a wheel going out of true if there is only a couple of mm's clearance. Nice to know you squeezed a 2.0" tire on there.. I think I could get a 50mm, tops, on my 520 (and without fenders). @Benzo, how is the clement MSO on pavement? Would it actually work as an urban tire, it looks a bit too grippy (at least in pictures)? I guess what I'm asking is, are they your CX bike tires that occassionally see pavement or is it on a bike you ride frequently and they really aren't that bad on pavement... I imagine the USH would be better (in regards to rolling resistance) but I think it maxes out at 35mm.

I'm riding the clement for everything. It does fine on the road, while not as fast on pavement as slicks, they are a good all rounder tire for me. I've got the 60tpi version, which gives a smooth ride without being as fragile as the higher 120 TPI version. I tend to hit trails (singletrack and crushed limestone) in frick/schenly, commute, hit cobble streets, and take my bike places it doesn't necessarily belong. I do a lot of pavement miles on these tires, and feel like they are a good compromise for what they are. If you don't need to off-road at all, then they might not be for you. They do seem faster than the knards, which I used for winter commuting last year. Depending on riding conditions, I tweak the air pressure (as you should on any larger volume tire). It can go as high as 90psi and as low as 40psi, depending on conditions. I tend to keep it at about 70 psi in the front and 80 in the rear for commuting, 45/50 for off road. here's the best review I could find on this tire, which convinced me to try it out. http://gravelgrindernews.com/473/ Here's the product page: http://clementcycling.com/xplor-mso

I've been enjoying my 26x2" Schwalbe marathon plus's. I don't know if it's the width of the tire or the lower PSI (from around 90 on my other bike to 50 on the Schwalbe's) but it feels like Earth balance buttery spread to me as well (considered the big apple too, but they have less flat protection) But then again, my hybrid is essentially just a hard tail MTB that I've heavily modified and my rims have a recommended wheel size of 2.3" I've used liners before with so-so success. I think if you want reliable flat protection, you have to spend the money. Also, with the liners, if you do get a flat, it's another thing you have to screw around with when you're changing the flat.

I commute on a track bike, so the largest tire I can fit without it rubbing is a 700x23. I ride Continental 4 Seasons and love them. I have gone over 6 months without a flat on average and am 6'2". Not sure why people want huge tires, but they might be great in the snow?

I don't note any durability difference especially. Comfort (to an extent and dependent on the psi chosen) and trail happiness (esp in wet conditions) I think are better arguments for wider tires.

@Benzo, thanks. I think the 40mm version would actually suit my needs quite well. Just looking for a tire I can throw on my touring bike for gravel rides in State College or for a tour down the C&O. Seems like a good fit for that. I'll keep a second set of 28-32mm tires on another set of wheels for faster paced stuff/ daily ride.

I have 26" wheels on my commuting bike and I love my schwalbe land cruiser tires. They have some sort of puncture protection in the tread meaning I can hit anything on Pgh roads (which can be anything from stones to glass to huge potholes) and never have to worry about blowing out a tire or getting a snake bite in my tube. My old road bike has 700x25 tires and I can't really ride it in Pittsburgh due to the streets. However, I used that all the time in Cincinnati and Ann Arbor when I lived there. Of course, that was 15+ years ago, so their atreets may be neglected by now too. Not sure you can get good puncture protection on a 700 tire. I assume the puncture guard makes the roll resistance higher too.

Rolling resistance isn't affected by a puncture guard. Tire surface/contact area and the rubber compound that touches the ground affect rolling resistance. The puncture guard just makes the tires ridiculously heavy (like, 2x as heavy in the case of a Schwalbe Marathon). You'll also see people get all worked up about "rotational mass" but that has more to do with the tires feeling sporty than influencing rolling resistance. There's no inherent reason that a 26" tire would be any better than a 700c tire in regards to puncture protection, to my knowledge... the limiting factor is what the frame will allow.

I have been commuting in Pittsburgh on 700x25's since 1995. I don't think I get an excessive amount of flats. Maybe riding style has something to do with it?

Tire liners make ride quality terrible. I NEVER run my commuter without tire liners though and have very few flats. My most common flat on my commuter is from the valve stem pulling away from the tube (once every ~6 months). I commute on 32mm Panaracer Pasela's in the summer and 32mm Ritchey speed max in the winter.

"Rolling resistance isn’t affected by a puncture guard. Tire surface/contact area and the rubber compound that touches the ground affect rolling resistance. " That's not entirely accurate because the puncture guard affects the surface/contact area. With Schwalbe Marathon tires for instance, the tire is harder and isn't able to deform as well as a tire with less puncture protection. See: http://www.schwalbetires.com/tech_info/rolling_resistance

@Pierce, you're a jerk. Thanks!

Puncture protection doesn't really help against pinch flats/snakebites does it? 3 of the 4 flats I've had in the past 5 years have been pinch flats (although two of those were on the C&O, on consecutive days). The other one was a tack that nothing was going to stop. 700x32 Vittoria Randonneurs.

No puncture protection does not help against pinch flats. I thought that was the case Pierce but did not know where to get that info.

@salty what rim/tire combo are you using? That's a lot of pinch flats. For comparison, I've had one pinch flat in seven years (a week ago) and that was due to using a tire that should have long since been retired due to stretching and not seating on the rim correctly... when I took it over some really rough off-road (large gravel), I ended up with a pinch flat despite running a reasonably high pressure.

75% of my riding is on roads in some sort of repair, 20% is on improved gravel trails, but that 5% is critical, a mile almost every day on an unimproved dirt path that features deep mud, deep puddles, and gravel washout. The tires work fine for all that. I'm running Vittoria Randonneurs, 700x32, on my main ride, and have not had any operational trouble. One nail. Changing those buggers is another matter. They're damn difficult to get off my rims. I just let Thick do it.

@salty I think pinch flats are a result of having too thin a tire/rim combination/high PSI per weight. Perhaps with a wider tire and lower PSI pinch flats would be less?

I'm going on 5 years with my Continental City Contacts 26 X 1.5" (not knobby, and not as wide as they sound) and they're terrific. They're good on pavement, cobbles, limestone, rocky trails to a point, and have pretty good traction in slippery conditions. I do avoid descending the roughest of the cobbled roads because I don't like my wrists absorbing so much vibration, but I don't blame the tires for that. They are starting to look worn (sorry, I have no clue how many miles) but I haven't noticed any loss in performance yet. They've also never had a flat that I can remember except when I tore a valve, so again not the tires' fault. Highly recommend for our urban jungle.