Nice to meet all of you, this is my 2nd post but I plan on being around here much more often. Hopefully I will be helping people with their questions later but for now. I am a newbie and will, like most, start their forum life with a question.
So two weeks ago i picked up a 2002 Kona Blast. Very nice bike and got a good deal on it. As I realize how into biking I've gotten over the past two weeks, I've decided its time for some upgrades.
Number one being new tires, it has mountain tires but since I will only be on the mountain occasionally and most of my riding is done in the streets. It is time for some street tires, but I'm not sure which tires to pull the trigger on. Like the intro of the forum says, the biking world isn't made for heavyweights. So i'm not sure what tires would stand up to abuse, I'm particularly scared of curb hopping with a pair of street tires, in my mind the tires instantly pop like a balloon and soon as they hit the ground. I'm guessing I'm probably looking for street tires with a strong sidewall. But I'm not certain so that's why I'm asking you. Another question related to this is: the tires that came on the Kona are 1.95, would my street tires have to be 1.95 to fit on my rim, or could i go smaller?(obviously not going to get to 1.0).
Got some good info from this thread
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ire-wear/page2 But there didn't seem to be any consensus on the answer, everybody just threw whatever tire they last spent money on, and then said it was the best. I understand needs are different for everyone(especially us) but I would think there would be some sort of side by side review, or someone who's rode on a wide enough variety of tires to give some more balanced opinions.
My budget for tires is probably $35 each, but feel free to push it if the tires are worthy.
Number two being, I have extremely strong legs, 5 years of angry football coaches have made sure of that. But they don't move to fast, so i never leave the 3rd crankset gear, and my legs power through 24 easily. So I'm looking at getting a bigger crankset, the current crankset is a 42-34-24. So I'm looking to get one with something more like 48-38-28. Just want to confirm that this will improve my top speed and get me using my 2nd crankset gear(for uphills at least).
I'll have more questions later but for now, this is the farthest my wallet wants to think.
Thanks.