Whitewall balloons vs. Mtb tires

[wheelhorseman]

I got my Rand all fixed and rides beautifully. Love riding it. The other day I had a flat tire and noticed those 26 x 2.125 balloons are a very thin cheap tire. I have a like new set of Duro 26 x 2.00 mtb tires which seem thicker and better made. Whats your opinions on swapping? Its my everyday rider so I dont care about tire wear. My concern would be rolling resistace on asphalt compared to the balloons. Dont wanna work harder to ride.

I did notice the mtb tires specify 55 lbs of air vs the 40 lbs in the beach tire. They may make for a nicer ride.

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[LukeTheJoker]

Your balloon tires have a nice centre ridge would that helps reduce rolling resistance, it looks like your MTB ones may have that a little too, but usually the more knobby a tread is, the more effort it is going to take to push.

There are plenty of 'trekking' options in tires these days that have smoother treads and can run up to 100 psi, just depends on budget...

Luke.

 

[horsefarmer]

one sure way to find out - swap em' and ride it .
I don't care for knobbies on blacktop - they roar like you are being chased by bees and they vibrate.

 

[BDC]

Yep - what the Farmer says - Knobbies on tarmac gets old pretty quickly.

 

[Duchess]

Riding knobbies on asphalt is like driving Jeep Wranglers on the highway. There's a satisfaction to the incongruence, but it wears quicker than the tires. When I became too conscious of my immortality (or more accurately, fragility of the human body when presented suddenly with unyielding geology), I converted my full suspension mountain bike to a cruiser with Big Bens and that rode like a Cadillac. An old one.

 

[blackdiamond]

Im extremely fond of CST tires 'jack rabbit' its an all terrain/mountain tire, BUT it has a ridge completely around the center allowing it to roll relatively fast, i picked them because where i ride alot, i have alot of pavement on the way to the trail and i dont want to fight the tire on the way or lose grip on the trail.

they are 26x2.10 tires and look pretty good with the white lettering (this is my daily rider)

 

[Wildcat]

I rode 3 miles to work for a few years, I had sidewalks and plenty of room to ride. When I rode with knobbies it was a lot more work. Even though they were 2.125, the smooth tread on my typhoon repop tires were better than 1.75 tires. I found 45-50 psi was best for rolling resistance. Then when I added alloy wheels, it rode even better.

They used to have inserts that go between the inner tube and tire, some were kevlar, to keep from getting flats. That may fix the problem.