rgdenis

I'm thinking of buying slicks for my MTB, but I cannot seem to find the price anywhere. Can anyone give me an estimate of the price per each wheel? My MTB is a 29er.

Thanks!

HillRider

Where have you looked? Any bikeshop or on-line dealer has them but maybe not listed as 29" tires. Are you aware that "29" " MTB wheels are identical in size to 700c road wheels and take the same tires? Since 29" rims tend to be wider than road rims, you will probably do better to use moderately wide road tires, say 700-28 and above.

mconlonx

You should be able to find cheap (700x32-38) hybrid tires @ $15-25/ea.

Bill Kapaun

https://www.biketiresdirect.com/tirefinder

fietsbob

Installed? check your LBS.

FBinNY 

The 29" mtb size is just a different name for 700c tires. Since only the mtb community calls them 29", you might be more likely to find what you're looking for as a wide 700c road tire, such as a 700x42c or the like.

BTW- as someone riding slicks for commuting, I remind you that their performance in mud, or loose sand is worse than terrible. They're also pretty bad in gravel or lightly sand covered roads. So if you're using these tires of road or mixed on/off road use, consider tires with either a center ridge, or a smooth center, with tread to either side. Either of these will give you good performance on pavement, with the tread providing traction and bite on soft surfaces. That's what I use on the commuter in the winter, when it's mostly pavement, but I might run in to some snow.

dsbrantjr

"The 29" mtb size is just a different name for 700c tires."

Confusingly, "700c" tires have a rim diameter of 622mm. The tires you have will be marked "622-XX" or "XX-622" or the like. The XX, say 42, for example, is the nominal width in millimeters. You should roughly match this width with your new tires although tires of different design or manufacturer will vary slightly in actual width.

HillRider

This isn't that critical as bike rims are pretty tolerant of tire width. I installed 26x1.25" (32 mm) slicks on an old MTB that came stock with 26x2.125" (54mm) knobbies and it worked fine.

dsbrantjr

My suggestion as to roughly matching the tire width was for avoiding clearance issues rather than for rim width compatibility. Of course going narrower as opposed to wider does not have this risk.

pierce

I would NOT even consider using any tire narrower than the rim's outer width, and thats quite narrow.

due to the nature of mountain bike steering geometry, when I've put very narrow/light tires on them, I've found the handling got pretty squirrely, so I prboably wouldn't go much under a 700x40 tire on a 29er mountain bike.

that said, there's lots of nice 40mm slicks and semi-slicks. look for tires that are relatively light compared with most in the same size, and that have a high thread count (this tends to go hand in hand). these tires will have a more supple sidewall, and will give a nicer ride with lower rolling resistance.

also note that the thinner the tire, the more PSI of air pressure you need for the same weight load.

rebel1916

Why would anyone need to get tires installed?

bobotech

People with no mechanical aptitude whatsoever. People with more money than brains. People with more money than time.

They are out there.

FBinNY 

Normally, I'd be with you on this, but the OP described this as a 29r, ir sold as a mtn bike. In that case, odds favor plenty or room for a pretty fat tire.

HillRider

The MTB I installed the 1.25" slicks on was a rigid fork hardtail and was used as strictly a road bike after that. The handling was fine even down a local 40 mph hill. These tires were somewhat wider than the rims (25 mm ID?) and I wouldn't, for example, recommend 700-23 tires on a 29er rim and i don't know how narrow tires would affect a full suspension bike.

FBinNY 

One thing people forget is that when you use a narrower tire you also reduce the radius. That drops the axle and reduces trail, changing the steering geometry. It's not a factor on road bikes since the range of sizes is narrow. But taking an inch off the radius of the wheel on a mtn bike that was designed around a 2" wide tire is quite a bit. Combine that with a suspension fork that's sagged a bit, and the trail can get pretty skimpy. If it gets small enough the handling can get squirrelly.

pierce

except, you're dropping the back wheel by the same amount, so the steering angle and stuff stay the same, the trail difference is really small over the couple inches of vertical difference.

there IS another effect, the smaller diameter/circumference wheel gives you effectively lower gear ratios across the board, by a few percent.

xenologer

yep

don't complain, be thankful
its because of such people that bike mechanics can afford to eat

sreten

Hi,

One option is to mix tyres, a good rolling slicker tyre on
the back and a tyre with a bit more tread on the front.

No suspension MTB - fit lower pressure wider tyres.
Suspension MTB - tyre width matters less I believe.

rgds, sreten.

Retro Grouch 

People who simply don't want to change their own tires.
People who want to see how it looks before they pay for it.