teachme

Are folding tires meant to be a quick fix or are they as sustainable as regular road tires?

Bill Kapaun

1/2 my "regular" tires happen to be folding. I don't even think about it.

fietsbob

Folding means a synthetic, Aramid, Kevlar, etc. is used for the bead 'wire' ..
it is lighter than steel, but once on the rim it is just a tire.

Advantage , easier to have a 3rd tire on hand.

Drew Eckhardt 

Cheap steel beaded tires take more space to store, can be harder to install, and weigh more. The highest quality tires with the lowest rolling resistance are unavailable with a steel bead option.

There's no reason to prefer a wire bead over a normal high-quality Kevlar folding bead tire except for price.

bigfred 

Aramid/Kevlar beaded tires (folding) are my "regular" tires. They're lighter and more convenient than wire beaded (non-folding) tires. Routinely wear through the tread of kevlar beaded "training tires" (so, plenty of rubber on them) without every experiencing any issues related to the bead.

e_guevara

Been using them on my bikes for the longest time. Easy to remove and reinstall in the event of a patch job during a flat. Never had issues with them.

Dan Burkhart 

Ya don't see many high end road tires with a rigid bead,

Myosmith

I have had some of each and still do among my bikes. I have never noticed any difference in wear or performance between folding and wire bead tires once installed. There is a slight weight advantage to the folders but for most riders that advantge is negligible.

HillRider

As noted, almost all higher quality tires have folding beads so it's considered a benefit, not a negative.

rekmeyata

Most better tires are folding nowadays. And, as already mentioned, it's easier to repair a flat. All I have to do most of the time is remove about 1/2 of the bead of one side with the hole in the middle of the half, pull about a fourth of the tube out with the hole in the middle of the fourth, do the patching thing and stuff it back in and reseat the tire...easy.

Since I ride in remote areas, and quite a bit of distance from home, I always carry a spare ultralight racing tire tightly folded in my seat bag. This idea of carrying a spare is a carry over from my old days when I used tubulars, I just got into the habit of doing so and it's paid off twice for me and once for a stranger and both times as well as the stranded stranger we would have had a 2 to 5 hour walk just to get to civilization!

Of course that will mean you'll have to have a large enough saddle bag to handle a tire, but if you don't ride far from home a spare tire is not really necessary.

I also don't treat my wife like she's my mommy either, so I refuse to call her for anything while I'm out riding unless I wind up in the hospital, in fact she calls me all the time when I'm out!

hyhuu

In other words, it's not as good. It's better.

Kimmo

Maybe I just have to develop the knack, but I find wire-bead tyres far easier to mount.

Chombi

Frankly, I don't know why they still make bicycle tires wire wire beads. There's no real big benefit to them except a slight savings in cost. Only thing I can think of, is possibly a stronger bead seating against the rims, but foldable tires (as long as they are used with hooked edged rims) are regularly pumped up to as high as 120PSI on sport and race bikes without them blowing off the rims. I've been using only foldable clincher tires on my bikes since they first came out in the early 80's and I never had a problem with them.

Chombi

rekmeyata

Actually they came in 1978, Specialized Turbo was the first model, and that's when I switched to folding tires when I saw the first set in a LBS, it was the new thing, and never looked back to tubulars after that, they were a revelation.

JohnDThompson 

Disadvantage: sometimes they can be a b***h to mount.

HillRider

Yep, some are dreadful to install and some are quite easy but I've come across the same fit disparity with wire beaded tires. Depends on the rim and tire and you really can't generalize.

Also, I find that folding bead tires that are very difficult to install initially are somewhat easier the second time around. It's as if the bead relaxes a bit after the first installation and inflation.

bigfred 

Lightly constructed tires definately "move" a bit over the first several days. In taking measurements with calipers of tires inflated to a given pressure I've witnessed them "grow" over the first week. It was more than just the bead taking a seat or "relaxing" or streching. I'm not entirely surprised by this, given how thin some of the sidewalls are and the pressures that some of us inflate them to.

A point to keep in mind with regard to models that are occassionally reported to be hard to (un)mount by some but not others, is that internal channel of the rim and it's minor diameter can play a large role in exactly this, as can the state of inflation of the tube. A slightly inflated tube is less likely to get pinched and helps hold the tire in shape, but, also moves the already installed bead out of the center of the rim and takes up volume, creating a tire that is harder to mount than it would be with a flat tube.

robert schlatte

I usually default to wire bead because they are a little cheaper. The slight weight advantage of folding is not important to me since I generally ride heavier touring bikes anyway. For me the one important aspect of a folding tire is they pack down much smaller and can be carried easily in a pannier as a spare as pointed out by others here. (Although I do love the old photos of the racers back in the day on the European tours with tires looped and folded over their arms and backs.)

norskagent

I had to use wire beaded tires on the unhooked edge rims of my '78 raleigh pro. Folding tires blew off.

HillRider

A friend had a '72 Raleigh with straight wall Weinemann 27" alloy rims and even wire bead tires wouldn't stay put at over about 80 psi.

Al1943

Folding tires are the "regular" tires now. I have not used a wire bead tire in 16 years.

Doug5150

They are entirely usable as regular road tires, assuming you can get them onto the rim. Kevlar beads fail about as often as steel-wire beads fail--which is,,,, almost never.

......however.......

Kevlar-bead tires do tend to blow off rims more, though mostly I have seen this reported in the MTB world--in particular, with people trying to use tubeless conversion kits with regular tires that have kevlar beads. The inner-tire sealants seem to play a part, since MTB tires using tubes at similar pressures don't usually have the same problem. When this occurs (MTB tubeless tire blowoffs) usually the kevlar bead breaks and fails entirely, and the tire will no longer stay on the rim at all (even if the wheel is cleaned off and the tire is re-mounted 'normally' with an inner-tube).

Kevlar-bead tires also tend to be made tighter (the bead is a tighter fit) and so can be more difficult to change. This is commonly observed with road bikes and tires.

---------

There is somewhat of an argument about what constitutes the primary force of keeping a bicycle tire on the rim. Simple bead strength/tension apparently is part of it, as no tire company says it's okay to keep using a tire that has a cut or broken bead. Also the MTB reason above (kevlar bead breaks==ruined tire).

Also note that there are two kinds of steel-bead tires now--the earlier single-strand type that can only be folded into a triple-loop, and the newer cable-bead tires that can be packed down quite small as long as the beads are not kinked. I don't know what road tires use the cable beads, but I know that a lot of cheaper cruiser bike tires do--so cost would not seem to be the issue.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Comfort-26..._fb_revshr_001

Note that the description of the above cheapo tire specifically says the beads are carbon steel, but foldable. These tires (that come packed in these little boxes) all use steel-cable beads, not steel-wire beads.

wroomwroomoops

Kevlar/aramid bead seems to stretch more easily (i.e. responds to tensile stress more readily) than steel bead. That would explain a lot in terms of why steel-beaded tires blow off the rim less likely than kevlar/aramid. I guess manufacturers are compensating for this by making the kevlar/aramid bead of a smaller circumference.

rekmeyata

I use wire beaded tires on my touring bikes because they are less expensive and the need just isn't there, and since the bikes are used for touring another 50 grams isn't going to hurt anything. The cost difference for my touring bike is an additional $23 each to get folding, I just don't see the point to save 50 grams.

But on my road bikes there all folding.

Some vintage bikes use unhooked rims and wire beaded tires will only work for those types of rims.

Mounting wise, I'm so use to using folding tires after 34 years I never even think about it anymore. New they sometimes can be a problem but I've learned to put them on over the years and so again I just don't think about it. But flat fixing is far easier with a folding tire then a wire beaded tire; but with touring bike you have to pull the panniers off anyway to fix a flat, so by the time you go through all that hassle you might as well use steel beaded tires.