Originally Posted by
Velo Mule
I also looked at what the K184 is and it seems to be an economical tire first. Second it would be utility oriented. For recreational riding this may be less desirable. If you have a grocery getter, pub bike or beater, this could be an option. I like the Kenda K35 for a more budget oriented build. I have two bikes with them and they have been good.
I'm with Tom aka
noglider, Continental or Panaracer are the better tires choices for 27" (630) rims. I have heard good things about the Michelin tires but I haven't tried them.
If you want more width there are the Sand Canyon tires which made by Panaracer and are 1-3/8" wide, but I have heard that they are not much wider than the Panaracer Pasella's. Kenda also has a couple more 1-3/8" tires that may be better than the K184's. There is a Kross Cyclo tire and a K40.
Again:
The problem with the Kenda model the OP complained about wasn't that it was in any way inferior. It was that, as a tire with a tread designed for (moderately rough) off-road trails, it was the wrong tire for the OP's predominantly paved-road use.
Hammering home the point: a 25-mm-wide Continental GP5000 is not a bad tire. But it would be a bad choice for riding rough trails.
I agree that Continental tires have a deservedly high reputation for quality. But it wouldn't be surprising if their tires had more of a problem with quality control than Kenda.
Why?
Continental is a big player in the racing and enthusiast market. Thus, they're obliged to update and innovate more or less constantly. New designs, new machinery, new assembly procedures: problems are bound to arise from time to time with any such business, as noglider pointed out in a recent post where he gave us a glimpse of his hard-won knowledge of quality control issues (and non-issues).
Kenda, in comparison, has no real presence in that market.
(They do produce some high-end tires, at least for mountain bikes, but that's likely a perfunctory effort, representing a felt need to maintain a presence at races by sponsoring some riders or teams.)
So, to serve their bread-and-butter slice of the market, they've cranked out pretty much the same tires in the same (gigantic) numbers for decades. Whatever QC problems they might have seen (and caught) with those models have long since been erased.
So I'll happily buy Continental tires for my racier bikes, but I'll just as happily, and maybe just a bit more confidently, buy cheap Kenda tires for the Cannondale hybrid I've been doing most of my miles on for the last five years.