Hello, long time lurker with finally something worth asking that I could not find in the search. I just recently got into road biking, and my wife now wants to join me. My first bike was a cheap mountain bike that is collecting dust and will likely not be used for the mountain trails as I have a better mountain bike now for that.

So I'd like to convert my old MTB for my wife so she can have the best chance of keeping up with me on my road bike, and I'd like to keep it low budget for now. And I understand that swapping out the tires will probably be my best bet to help her with better speed since we will only be on paved trails. The tires on there now are a set of 26 x 1.95 tires.

My question is, can I run 26 x 1.25 tires on the old rims of my mtb? I talked with someone on the phone at Performance Bikes and they told me it would be too skinny, and to stick with 26 x 1.50 and up. But I read on one of the reviews that people have been able to put 26 x 1.25 on their old rims, is this feasible?

Is it possible the person on the phone didn't know what they were talking about? They steered me towards another set of tires that was a lot more money than the tires I was looking at, at this point, I don't want to invest a lot of money in the tires because i don't know if my wife will actually stick with it. If she does, she's getting a road bike like mine. I learned my lesson when I dropped a pretty penny on her golf clubs and gear when she thought she wanted to "join me" there as well, which, didn't really happen. lol

Sorry for the long winded question, thanks in advance.

ari b