Originally Posted by
MRT2
I used to think that, and I have a collection of old tires now of varying levels of wear. Guess how often I need to put an old tire on one of my bikes in the last, say, 2 years? Zero. Though I did gift a slightly used 26" x 2.0 tire to one of my son's friends. If you take care of your bike, or bikes, it isn't especially likely you will have a catastrophic failure of a bicycle tire such that you have to go rooting around in your garage to pull out a spare just to go for a ride.
I use mine all the time. Switch seasonally, since I don't care about easy-rolling tires in the middle of winter, rain and gritty roads. Perfect time for those old durable tires. And I wasn't talking about catastrophic failure; I see threads, or a sidewall defect, I'll swap with the spare.
About six months ago I put my oldest, seemingly indestructible Kenda tires back on the bike I use least - having gone through 4 or 5 sets of tires since I first took those off. Surely zero waste there, since I'm still using them!
They're all hanging on a nail in a closet, some on a string on the nail, which takes up almost no space and no trouble to find.
Originally Posted by
MRT2
And on OP's current bike, changing tires would, IMO, be a waste of money at this time.
I don't know what tires he has, but if they're stock tires or some inexpensive flat-resistant ones it's just about certain that nicer tires will give him a faster, smoother ride.
As for better wheels, yes, that could make a difference. But again, this is an entry level bike we are talking about. If OP goes cheap, he might as well stick with what he has. If you are talking about lighter or more durable wheels than what he has, he could spend as much for upgraded wheels as he did for the whole bike, in which case, I would ask, why did he go entry level in the first place? IMO, maybe best for OP to save his money and get upgraded wheels, tires, and components on the next bike since the current bike is only a couple of weeks old.
I got some nice Vuelta Corsa Pro wheels on sale for $119, far and away better than the cheap wheels I had. Wheels improve one bike as much as another, and even more for a cheap bike that has more room for improvement. Tires and wheels are the most bang for the buck in general, and on a cheap bike you won't go wrong with them unless you go overboard.