I threw the 37c conti travel contact tires on my cross bike last night. For some reason I decided to do it all without tire levers. My hands got so sore. I had to take the vittoria cross tires off my track wheels, the GP 3000's off my cross wheels, mount the travel contacts on the cross wheels and remount the GP 3000's on my track wheels. It was hard enough getting the GP 3000's off the rim of the cross wheels, but then putting a 37c tire on them was ridiculous. The rims are open pros so they are VERY narrow, and the tires were VERY wide (like 4-5 times wider than the rim) and stiff. It was like mounting car tires to the rim it was so hard but I eventually managed. Every time I would almost get the second bead mounted it would just pop out completely and make me groan. I'm just on the cusp of having tires too fat for the frame and fenders (Soma reports you can fit 38c tires with fenders, but they must mean slick 38c tires with low profile fenders). Oh yeah at one point when I was trying to pull the tires off I punched myself in the nose by mistake and it really hurt! I thought my nose was going to bleed for sure! haha

I have yet to change the tires on my commuter. At the moment its got some 23c kenda slicks on it and I want to change them to my 32c Conti City Ride tires but I have a feeling my frame won't take them, let alone with fenders. Anyone know any good tires ~25c with some inverted tread and knobbies on the outside? I'm not going to worry about it until the roads get snowy, but I saw people scraping their cars today so it seems like it may be close.