Sawtooth

In response to my inquiry about inverted tread tires for the winter, Hard Weinberg was kind enough to send me his set of 700 X 32 Michelin Transworld Cities. I mounted them last night and have only about 20 miles on them right now, so this review is just about initial performance offroad and on.

The bike is a 2005 Kona Major Jake with XTR v-brakes, Dura Ace levers, and travel agents. The tires are mounted onto my Mavic Open Pro rims with no problems. I run Ritchey drop bars.

Initial use was on the 14 mile commute in this morning. We had a strong tailwind but the tires were suprisingly comfortable and (at 78 psi) only a little slower than the 23 mm IRC red storm classics I have been running at 100 psi. One would be foolish to dive new tires into corners in traffic so I did not, but they seem to not have quite the gripping power of a non-treaded tire on pavement. This is particularly noticeable when dropping off a sloping sidewalk curb, the tread seems to move a little. In all, the commute in this morning was a little faster than normal, so they can't be all that much slower

Now for the offroad: Thats right, you heard me....OFFROAD! For years, I have sought the perfect bike for my 28 mile round trip commute that would still allow me to ride off road on my lunch breaks. This was my thinking for buying the cyclocross bike. I have been running it with Tioga Bloodhounds that are pretty aggresive but slow on the pavement. The Transworld cities did just fine on the road so I wanted to test them off road. I took them on an briskly paced 4 mile loop in the Boise foothills at lunch today. For local riders, the trail was a variation of a double climb up Military Reserve to Lower Shane's Loop to Bucktail. I chose to descend bucktail because it has off-camber turns with sand/gravel that test friction. The climb up was significant and steep in some spots covering hardpack to 2 inch deep sand. The tires climbed beautifully both seated and standing and only slipped 1/2 inch or so at one point (this was more of a rider error than anything else). it was my opinion that they actually slipped less on the climb than my bloodhounds did last week. On hardpack, they are dead fast climbers relative to my equally fit buddy on his Specialized Epic with knobbies. I was constantly on his wheel and should have taken the lead.

Once on the top, I took the lead and quickly opened a huge gap of 100 or 200 yards on the 1/2 mile or so to the bottom of Shanes loop. Then came the real test, descending Bucktail. I knew that even with the most aggressive knobbies my CX bike was no contest for my buddy's Epic so he took the lead. He never got more than 100 yards ahead of me. I descended fairly quickly and was in the drops the entire time. The reason I was in the drops was two-fold; I felt that it gave me a much better weight distribution over the front wheel (you would be crazy not to keep the front wheel weighted descending off road on these tires), secondly, it allows me to really pull on my brake levers.

The tires performed way better than expected on the sandy descent. I never slipped once through probably 70-80 turns. I even got off trail a couple of times and was able to correct my line at speed through a corner without slipping. Toward the bottom, I got some nerve up and even bunny hopped a 3 inch log diverter without so much as a tiny slip on the rough and off camber landing.

The bottom line:
1: These tires are not as forgiving as knobbies off road. I really had to pay a lot of attention to my line and balance and got suprising performance as a result.
2: These tires allowed me to go as fast on this particular off road trail as I would want to go with any tire on this bike. In other words, the lack of suspension was the limiter, not the tires.
3: On road performance is satisfactory (we will see in time if I have the same problems with flats that Hardy Weinberg was having). I am running mr. tuffy's in the tires. The inverted tread did fill up with pebbles very quickly, as Hardy had warned me about.
4: Rain: I will update later about rain performance
5: Snow: I will update later about snow performance
6: This seems to be a great tire for the fellow who has a long commute in and wants to do light off roading during the day. As long as the off roading is moderate and on hardpack (read: no mud), it will handle it just fine.
7: This is not a good off road choice for a beginner or someone still figuring out balance and front braking issues. It is just not forgiving enough
8: It is possible that my performance with it today was due to paying way more attention to my turning and braking. But that is not such a bad thing, right?

wahoonc

I run them in a 700cx40 on my "CityBike" that I use as a grocery getter. I have never had a problem with flats and ride in all types of weather on them. I am not what I would consider an aggressive rider...YMMV

Aaron

Sawtooth

Nice to know. Thanks. I am hoping that the Mr. Tuffys will make a difference here but we have a real goat head problem and they can get through tire liners.

JustBrowsing

Thanks for the review, sawtooth. I've looked at those tires before, but never picked them up. I'm also curious to find out how the Transworld Sprints handle. They only come in 35 and 40, but they seem like they'd be perfect for a good mix of road and trail riding.

Sawtooth

No problem. If you ever get to test the sprints, let us know what you think. The look like a great tire for what we are talking about. My father and I do a 100 miler every year that incorporates about 40 miles of mountain fire roads 60 highway miles. The sprint or the cities might be the answer.

bsyptak

I had Transworld City's on my old commuter. I sold it with probably 4k miles on it, at least 3k with these tires. The front showed no wear at all and the rear still had lots of deep tread; however, it had flattened out somewhat. I never noticed it though until right before I sold it. I'm quite sure they'd go 10k miles on the rear and at least 15k on the front.

Only thing that bugged me about them is that the inverted tread gathers little 2-3mm pebbles that stay there. Doesn't really cause any problems, just annoying. Best way to get them out I found was to let the air out of the tire and squeeze the tire to open up the treads. Rocks fall right out.

I may buy them again with the new commuter because they are a very economical tire.

matthew_deaner

I've used these (the 32mm version) on a touring bike. I ended up swapping them out for some Panaracer Pasela tires in the same width. The transworld is very flat resistant, and it seemed long-wearing, though I didn't put a ton of miles on them (about 1,500). They're just really, really heavy and I think they ride rough. Traction on dry pavement wasn't so good either. I like a tire with more supple sidewalls (for a better ride) and a softer compound. But the Transworlds are a good value and they aren't really a bad tire... just mediocre, IMO.

Cave

I found them fine for about 1500km rear, 200km front; then they started flatting quite frequently (every couple of weeks).

Nothing special to ride on, but no problems with ride quality either; collect gravel/glass in the longitudinal grooves; no other problems early on but once I started getting flats they continued, no matter how carefully I cleaned the inside of the tyre or removed the gravel in the tread.

I'm not buying a second pair.

M_S

Two questions:

Did you run the tires at the same pressur eon-road and off, and how is cornering on-road?


Thanks, great review.

Bekologist

those tires are major debris collectors. they squirm in the corners. they are LAME-O.

my review.

dynaryder

I had the 26x1.95's on my old bad weather bike. They did squirm in fast corners. They were ok in the snow,but not as good as Conti T&C's. Good in the rain,too.

DogBoy

I have these in 700-32 and in 26x1.95. I ran them at the max pressure since I was all on-road. Two sidewall blowouts later (one on each bike at about 1500-2000 miles) and I'm not so thrilled with them anymore. I use the 700 size on my trainer (sacrificial tire) because the tread-wear (or lack thereof) is outstanding. The sidewall failures were my only flats. I'll say if you are commuting slow, at less than max psi, these are a good deal. I'm now on 700-25 conti 4000s for my road bike, and 26x1.5 armadillos on my commuter. Aside from the lack of reflective sidewall, I like the specialized tires way better...and their riding characteristics still suck relative to the contis.

Sawtooth

Yes, I ran 79 psi in both conditions. I have not taken a hard corner on them on the road yet, but my guess is that they will squirm under high lateral force, as others have noted.

mappable

i had the 26" version of the Transworld's on my Giant XTC which was stolen last week.

The reduced rolling resistance was substantial over regular MTB tires.

I blew out a spoke doing some hops, but never experienced a pinch flat or puncture flat.

I liked the reflective strips in the sidewalls.

i ran my Transworld tires at 60 lbs for my 210 lbs load.

i would buy this tire again.

Sawtooth

Update: It has now been almost a year and I have around 3,000-4,000 miles on Hardy's set. They are falling apart on the rear and are only serviceable due to the Mr. Tuffy liner I am running. Although they are falling apart, I have certainly gotten good use out of them and find them to be very durable.

In the 3-4,000 miles, I have flatted only 2 or 3 times. But I run a tire liner in them due to being in goathead country.

They do pick up lots of small bits of gravel and those bits often end up digging into the tire and even making a hole. This has not been a big deal for me due to running the tire liners but I would probably have tons of flats without the liners due to rocks embedding and digging through the rubber.

They have been a wonderful tire for me with a long commute and lots of off road as well. They have been used on a road century and had no problem keeping up. They regularly hang with my road buddies above 25 mph on high speed group rides.

I love them so much that I picked up two more pairs and am now running a set of 28s on my rain bike as well.

They performed very well in the snow over the winter on the few snow days we had here in Boise. I usually just ran one in the rear with a studded tire up front. If there was no snow on the ground, I ran both Transworld Cities.

Highly recommended for riders who do mostly road but also want some very serviceable off road tires.

exile

Wow Sawtooth, I saw the date of the original post and was wondering who would have responded. It's nice to know you took the time to update after having some serious miles on them now.

I had the 26 inch Michellin TransWorld Cities but was not to impressed. They seemed slow and heavy for my tastes. I did like the reflective stripe around the tire though. That's what originally brought me to them. I never took them off road though.

DX Rider

I had a set of Michelin TW tires, 700cx28, I wasn't impressed. Instead of the tread on the rear tire wearing down like a normal tire, the tread on these tires started to shred off of the tire at about 800-1000 miles. Plus, there was the problem of the nine flats that I had during that time, even using a tire liner. The side wall was flismy, so on a few occasions I had debris get initially stopped by the tire liner and than skirt the edge of the tire liner and puncture the sidewall.

I still have the front tire on that bike, even at 1000+ miles it still has a lot of tread on the tire and I've only had one flat. However, the shiny strip is actually pulliing away from the tire, since it's a seperate piece, and keeps hitting the brake pads as the tire rotates.

I also found them heavy and slow. People complain that Armadillos are heavy and slow, but I actually got faster when I replaced the Michelin TW with an Armadillo.

Luckily, the Michelins were only something like $17US each and they performed like $10 tires.

Sawtooth

Thanks for the responses DX and Exile. I seem to be about the only person who really likes these tires and I can actually see why with the pebble embedding issue. I will admit that when I put them on they did (and still do) FEELheavy and slow. However, my commute times over 14 miles each way seem to show that they really are not slower at all (ok, maybe compared to my 25c race tires).

It is really hard to control for everything over 14 miles because wind and traffic lights can be such a huge factor, but anecdotal times over a year seem to show no noticeable slowness.

Is it possible for a tire to feel much slower than it actually is? That certainly seems to be the case here with mine.

Of course, Now they are so worn that they might as well be slicks

DX Rider

It could be a case of the wider tire sizes being more durable. I know that poor road conditions definitely were a contributing factor in tearing that rear tire up.