Commuting tire size
 

I'm wanting to upgrade my tires for my Specialized tricross from the stock tires to something faster. I have looked at the panaracer pasela. Not sure what size to get and if its worth the extra $ to get the tour guard and kevlar bead pasela TG or just get the original pasela. Any Ideas?

PDB

I commute on relatively smooth roads, and I'm using 26x1.5 slicks. Pumped up to 80psi, I've had no problems. However, after my first flat, I'll probably invest in Kevlar-equipped rubber. ;)

I use 700x25 Armadillos. I like them, but I know a lot of people who swear that 28s are the best balance of speed and comfort for an "all purpose" bike.

I don't think, personally, I'd commute on anything smaller than a 25. And since this is a commute, not a race, I'm more concerned with all condition durability mixed with some speed than I am with pure speed. Hence the All Condition Armadillos.

I use 700x25 Schwalbe Stelvios with a wire bead. 25c's are a nice compromise, I find them fast but they still give me a nice ride.

I ride 700x60 schalbe big apples. I swap back and forth with 28c conti gatorskins every month or two - the change of pace keep me excited about getting on the bike.

If I only could have one pair of tires, It'd be a gatorskin in either a 28 or 32 for my rough urban commute. It depends on what you ride, though - you could get away with 23c race tires on some people's commutes.

I use 700 x 28 Conti Ultra Gatorskins but I'm thinking of going to 25's. They are pretty flat resistant but I run Mr. Tuffies in them for commuting. On our tandem we have 700 x 28 Surfas Seca's that also seem to be pretty good at resisting flats. Both are nearly slick.

I've used only a couple of types of tires, so I'm no expert, but I recently had to buy some tires so I looked through a bunch of threads here, and for commuting, I found that people like these tires, more or less in this order:

Schwalbe Marathon
Panaracer Pacela TourGard
Continental Top Touring 2000
Bontrager Race Lite
Continental Gatorskin
Vittoria Randonneur
Specialized Armadillos

Some comments I saw:
Armadillos don't ride that well

Every one of these tires had people who swore they were great tires.
I think you're on target for picking the Pacelas for a fast ride in a relatively tough commuter tire.

I'm running 32s but that's because my rims really won't take much smaller, or I'd probably be running 28s. I don't think I'd want to run any smaller than that; even with 32s I can certainly feel the road, at least better than with the 38s my bike came with.

I've ran 700X35s on my last bike. This one has 700X23s Vittoria Randonneurs. Works fine. However, I've only been riding on them for 3 weeks. I am pondering something wider for winter.

I use Specialized Armadillos 700x28, they roll fine enough for me. They feel good enough since i run over a lot of pot holes, and im not exactly a gentle rider.

When I converted my mtb to a commuter, I started with michelin wildgripper city. Heavy and flatted a lot. I then tried specialized fatboys but they were a still a little slow for me and I wiped out in the rain once (ah. anecdotal evidence). Now I run specialized all condition 26x1.0 tires. flatted only once in about 2000 miles when a shard of glass worked its way through the tire. They have the "flak jacket" technology meaning they have a kevlar belt but it doesn't go up the sidewalls. kevlar bead. can pump up to 120psi. my commute is all paved pretty well so I love them.

usually 700 x 23c, (commuter performance), but have used 700 x 25c (tourer BikeNash),and 26" x 2.125" (raleigh tech M/B). all are kevlar lined!

The TG paselas are great tires. Get the Kevlar belt and the Kevlar bead.
They last a long time, they resist flats well, are on the fast side, but a little bumpy compared to others. I got about 6500 out of the first pair, and there was plenty of tread left,
But the cloth threads on the bead tape started coming off, so did the bead tape itself. so I bought new ones. I use 700 x32 on my touring bike. The 28's and the 26's are ok but I like the 32,s when riding with a load.

Guys, please, let me understand one thing. You choose puncture resistant kevlar tires and why don't use sealent for tires, like this

http://www.superbike.co.il/movies.php


or tubes already loaded with sealing ?

Now, the tires I use, and because I am not competing in any sort UCI Tour, are 26 x 1 Ritchey Tom Slick for the lond distance commuting, and cheapo kenda 20 X 1,75 on my folding bicycle

I ride with Bontrager Xlite Race 28 mm with MrTuffy strips. Half the weight of the Armadillos and much lower rolling resistance. I am 10% faster for the same effort, and more nimble handling. They have kevlar belt and beads but no special sidewall protection. I have read that the traction is not too good in the wet, but I dont ride if rain is forecast (sometimes I get caught).

The Kevlar belted tires work and are much more convenient. There's nothing to do except put the tires on. These days those sealants are used primarily for tires with no tubes in them. One needs to have a rim and tire valve that is different to make the tubless tires work.

Uh, because, in my experience, da sh*t don't work?

I only have experience with "slime" but I have never seen it actually seal a leak. It just makes a green gooey mess that I have to clean up.

Here's my 2+ year flat summary:
First flat: small T50 staple in the rear tire. Result: tire went totally flat, re-inflated, went flat again, had to patch tire after cleaning off green crap.
Second flat: small piece of glass, rear tire. Result, tire went flat, had to patch tire after cleaning off green crap.
Third flat: tire wearthrough, tube bulged through and got sheared off. Result: green crap explosion, the inside of my SKSs are now green, and there's a green dotted line on the road there.

I guess "True Goo" does work, judging from opinions here.

I don't generally flat anyway. I flat < 1 time a year even running the crappy Kendas my bike shipped with. I never flatted with my Nokians in the winter. I just put Bontrager Race Lite 32's on less than a week ago, we'll see how that goes.

For me, neither kevlar nor self sealers make sense. I wouldn't put Slime in my tubes now if you paid me. Tough tires make more sense to me anyway. Even if the tire self-seals, I'm going to have to fix it. If the tire is tough, I might not have to do anything other than maybe pull out a little piece of glass or something.

Right now I commute with a 1 1/8" tire and a 1 1/4" tire- rear is kevlar belted.

In a few thousand miles of riding, I've had a couple punctures on the kevlar-belted tire, even with a tuffy tire-liner inside! With bikes that have fatter tires, I haven't had many flats despite the fact that I didn't use tire liners or kevlar-belted tires.

Now I sort of want to get fat mostly-slick tires that have a lot of rubber between the road and the casing, because the kevlar in the tire I have seems to stop fat things but sometimes not little tiny pieces of junk like fragments of staples. These things aren't even long enough to puncture a lot of bigi tires, but they sometimes go through my little tire, kevlar, tuffy liner, and tube included.

Of course, I once got a nail through my kevlar tire, but it's difficult to do something about that.

I went to www.notubes.com and their video is really impressive. But it doesn't tell you whether the sealant will hold if you ride the bike for a few days afterward. I'm sure they're right that you can use the sealant on tires with or without tubes. They don't say whether it works on 90psi tires as well as it works on 40psi tires. I had slime-filled tubes that would hold air fairly well (and slowly leak slime) for a day or two after a puncture, and then fail to hold air for more than a minute or two.

The other thing that concerns me about sealants is that notubes.com says that their sealant dries out after a while (faster in dryer weather) and gives no specifics at all regarding how long the sealant lasts in dry or wet climates. I wouldn't see much of a problem with sealant that dries out after 6 months, but it would get annoying and expensive to replace the sealant every month.

Panracer 700x32 cheap at Performance.

me too!

+1 on the goo. Goo cannot stop the flat. Then you have to clean it up.

my last two flats due to staples...too much house repair in Atlanta...

I use 26 x 1.5 Specialized Nimbus. May change to Schwalbe for my next tires. Not discontented with the Nimbus but time to try something different.

I'm Running 700X28C Armadillo Nimbus tires atm. I also have future plans for 23c tires on a fixie for the summer...

I have the 700x35 Pasela Tourguards on my Cross-check, a bike similar to the Tricross. I like them a lot so far. I also have a set of Ritchey ZED Comp knobby cyclocross tires in 700x42 that I use for off-road stuff. They are great.

I would get the Tourguard. I used the Pasela's on the same trails I now use the Ritchey's on. No flats with the TG Pasela's, while I got two slow leaks from cactus thorns on the Ritchey's that have no built-in protection. Good luck. The Tri-cross is a nice bike, almost bought one, but went with the Surly in the end.

26x1.5 Slicks. hefty enough to take the dents in the street, smooth enough not to be a pain to pedal.

I misread that at first. "hefty enough to make dents in the street."

D***. Those would be some nice tires. :)

I run 28mm on my track bike (the fattest I can fit there) and 35mm on my fixie tourer. I had a road bike with fenders for a while that only fit 23mm tires. These were entirely too small so I sold the frame to buy the tourer.
My commute is 8.5 miles of urban roads with lots of glass, broken pavement and railroad tracks and I'm north of 200#. YMMV

Craig