Well if we're Totally Telling Terrific Tire Tales, here, I mentioned my current Schwalbe Marathon Supreme 700x50 above, but, a tire I truly LOVE is the Nashbar Slick City Tire (on sale for $12 right now). Really cheap, terrifically reviewed, great, sticky traction, fast-rolling.

I hadn't biked for probably 15 years, and I bought an old mongoose mtb off CL for $50. Before long one of the tires asploded, so I had to get some replacements. On kind of a whim, I got a pair of those slicks. Put them on, this mtb looked like a porn star, i.e. shockingly bald down below. But I got on and rode and WOW biking was fun again! It is well known around BF what a difference it makes switching from knobs to slicks on the road, but I knew almost nothing about bikes back then and had no idea.

I credit those tires with launching be back into cycling again, to the point that I'm a full-time bike-commuter now, almost living as a single-car family. (I still have "my" car, but it lives in the parking deck at work for months at a time, waiting for something to come up where my wife and I both need to drive different places at the same time).

At the moment, those tires are all that stand between my middle son and needing a second bike! Oldest already has road+mtb, but for now I am able to save space in the garage so he has only his Gary Fisher rigid mtb, I put on slicks or knobs depending on whether we're going on a road or trail ride.