Nashbar $10 slicks
 

Here's my situation. I bought schwalbe big apples 26 x 2.0 for on an old schwinn sierra. I am very dissappointed in that both tires don't spin true. One has 1/8" rise and the other a little less and my rims are true. These tires are a total rip-off. Total price gouging for 2 tires that aren't round. I will never buy schwalbe again. Which brings me to the nashbar 26x 1.25 slicks. Does anyone have a good close up picture of them. Do they spin true? Or do they look like the horrible tires that come on kmart bikes.

IF those Schwalbe tires are that bd I hope you are getting your money back.

I could take a pic of my nashbar tires if you want, but I doubt it would be more helpful than the pic on their site. I just spun the rim I have one of these tires on and it seems to spin pretty true there might be one spot that isn't, but it could be the rim I haven't run that wheel in a while. I think they are a good tire, but do you want something that narrow since the previous tires were 1.95?

Schwalbe is a pretty well-regarded name in bike tires. Are you sure that they are mounted correctly? The only problem I ever had with tires (not Schwalbes) was when I had mounted them incorrectly & one section had gotten 'stuck' in the rim. It was easy to identify the issue, and once I remounted them, I never had another problem.

Not only do they jump up and down, they also jump side to side. Its a joke. Schwalbe does have a warranty but I don't know how long it lasts. The tires only have like 50 miles on them and have been in storage for awhile. I bought bontragers awhile back and they are nice and true. But that was a different bike. After restoring the schwinn, I got the schwalbes back out and realized how bad they were comparing them to all the other tires I have. I wonder if they would give me 2 new tires. :lol: But if the new ones are the same, why bother. Maybe schwalbe sucks. I do know how to mount tires. Thanks for the replies. Keep them coming!

I have a Performance Slick City 1.25" and LOVE it! I can't guarantee that it's going to have less than 1/8" hop in it, though. I'd have to dismount it, check the runout of my rims, remount and check tire runout. Uggh. The center mold flashing is rather straight, though.

I think you're being a little too picky here. 1/8" hop in a 2" tire is pretty darn common, believe it or not. I doubt you could feel the hop when you're riding.

I suggest you get a full coverage front fender so that the tire tread will be out of sight, out of mind ;)

:lol: I know but if your rim was out of true by 1/8" which is .125, then that would pretty much be bent. So its ok to have a bent tire and not a bent rim? The other thing is that if the tire can't spin true then they should lower the price because they don't know what they're doing.

This certainly isn't the case. I've got 3 pair of SMPs which are the road version of the Big Apples w/o as single issue other than they were a ***** to mount. Once I applied a little soap and used a Kool Stop tire mounting tool they went right on. Over 20,000 miles on 3 different bikes over the last 3.5 years w/ 2 flats and one slow leak. One of the flats was blow-out that was the fault of the tube not the tire.

One would think that they would replace tires w/less than 100 miles. There's a toll-free number one can call when issues arise. To dimiss one of the top brands on the market as crap because of an isolated experience could be revelation of a deeper issue. I've had my frustrations w/cycling gear myself, so I empathize w/you there. Give them a call. My experience w/cycling gear/accessories manufacturers has always been good.

I have a pair of the 1.25" Slick City's that I occasionally use for rides like this, (two pics of the bike included): http://www.dim.com/~ryoder/MtEvans/
They are excellent and were great on the 45mph descent!
(I have 2" mtn tires on the bike right now, so I can't take a close up mounted photo).

It's actually 0.125", and I'd imagine it's within tolerance for just about any 2.0" tire out there. Smaller tires should generally have smaller tolerances since they're typically run at higher pressures and you're more likely to feel it while riding.

I'm surprised you rolled 50 miles on 'em if they really bother you that much. I'm kinda thinking you just decided you don't like big tires and want Schwalbe to recoup your losses.

I have a pair of Performance 1.25" x 26" tires on one of my recumbents and am very satisfied with this kevlar-belted, minimally-treaded, 340gm tire for $14.99.
http://www.performancebike.com/bikes...8_20000_400237

Nashbar has a very similar tire listed.

I run these on my fender beast and am very impressed with how straight and true they are, especially for the price.


http://www.tiogausa.com/city-slicker.html

I inflate them to 70 psi. rolling and high speed performance is excellent. There are several very fast 45 MPH+ downhills on my commute and a lumpy tire on those is a real hair raiser.

Just checked my Slick City's out and they're not more than 1mm out of round. True seems to be within 1mm also, measured from centerline to crests and troughs. Of course my rim isn't that true or round so the tire could be perfect for all I know.

And yeah, if you're not stoked about the Schwalbes take 'em back. Shoot some video of how out of true/round they are if they ask any questions.

I submitted a warranty ticket at schwalbe.com. If they decline then I'll keep my comments to myself and they won't get anymore money. I may attempt to true it out using sandpaper.

I like big tires and small tires. I have Bontrager Hanks 2.2 slicks on my heavy electric bike. Very true tires. And I have 700x23 continental ultra race on my road bike. Straight as an arrow. The big apples don't seem to be that fast. Coasting downhill seems slow. But its a mountain bike and I plan on using it for climbing. The speeds going uphill are the same as the road bike so not much difference there. I still would like to see a picture of the Nashbar $10 slicks. A close-up of the sidewall and label. All they show is the slick part. Doesn't tell you much. They claim around 66 tpi which is equal to the specialized fatboy and schwalbe kojak slick, and big apple. Michelin wildrun has 33tpi, ritchey tom slick has 27tpi, and there is a bontrager which doesn't show the tpi spec.

The Fotre and Nashbar tires are the same tires. The slicks re eh same and the metro tires are the same and the nashbar streetwise tires. I haven't mounted the streetwise tires yet (I didn't spend the extra for kevlar), but I like the look of them and nice lightweight etc.

Would you like closeup pics of an inflated slick tire (its a couple year old, bt not lots of miles) or an unmounted one thats brand new?

Yes! Lets see the pictures of the 2 year old nashbar slick. Sidewall and label please.

I guess I have a couple of pics of my Forte Slick City 1.25". Since you have a keen interest in the label, I'll point out that these only have one label on them, unlike the Forte Strada which has one on each side.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2685/...5286aa89_b.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5145/...2d719d90_b.jpg
Black Baron Project Day 2. by Lester Of Puppets, on Flickr

Wow. Those look like 23mm.

The rear tire is a 700c x 25 on a very narrow rim. The front rim is pretty darn wide.

So the rear tire is a 700c? I see the brakes are gone.

one never regrets buying quality. it couldn't be more true with cycling stuff.

I'm pretty stoked with the quality of the Slick City so far. I've been riding it for about a month now. Have about a 100 miles on it. Nice grip. Smooth ride. Feels grippier than Michelin Dynamics. No flats so far (knock on wood) and I've even been running without Mr. Tuffy (which I never do - I was scared for the first week, as I ride through some DEBRIS).

It's my first full slick 26" and I'm sold. I've run semislicks (Michelin Country Rock) and inverted tread (Avocet Cross and Serfas Drifters) and I like this better than all of those. I'm guessing not as bomb proof as the Avocet Cross but much lighter and smoother. Better grip than the Country Rocks. Comparable grip on bare pavement to the Cross and Drifters.

I'm regretting it right now. I got reamed for buying quality.

Oooh, reminds me of the time I got a pair of Armadillos at $50 per tire. Destroyed the rear within a couple hundred miles. This poor boy was sad. :(

Example: A good car tire with steel belts costs $100. A bicycle tire without steel belts that weighs 12oz should cost next to nothing. $10 sounds right. The name brand manufactures are just nailing everyone. No mercy.

I bought my nashbar slicks um maybe 5 years ago. I have put them on a number of bikes over the years. The reason I haven't really put alot of miles on them is in the past I generally like something wider. Other than that they seem to be fantastic. They roll good and for a tire that wide they aren't that harsh. I just bought some of the Slick city tires because I might run out of good used mountain bike tires someday for mountain bike flips and I figured I could also have some on hand for commuters or people who wanted to make their mountain bike as much like a road bike or hybrid as possible. Read the reviews, people love them. I think they are not cheap junk, but I am not picky about tires in general. I don't put a ton of miles on them and oddly I don't have flats except today. =(

I wish I could find good tires for $100. Last time I bought tires I spent around $1200 for the set.

As for Schwalbe, I've used 26 x 1.75 SMP, 700 x 25 Durano, and 700 x 25 Ultremo tires all without a problem. The only manufacturing issue that Schwalbe ever recalled tires for was a batch of Ultremos (IIRC) that had a weak section that blistered and blew out. Of course, for any product, manufacturing errors can occur and slip through the QA (quality assurance) process. This is what the warranty coverage is for.
As a former manufacturing engineer, let me explain the process: Let's say Schwalbe makes 5,000 of their Big Apple 2.0 tires in a production lot. They're not going to mount and caliper test each and every one of them since they have a certain degree of trust in their production machinery. That degree of trust is expressed in the QA testing scheme. For an established process with a high degree of trust, a company will likely use an ANSI Z1.4/ISO 2859 sampling plan. Tires would be non-destructively tested, so (most likely) a "Normal - II" sampling level would be used to determine how many tires out of that batch of 5,000 will be randomly checked for failures. Per the sampling tables, QA testing would randomly select 200 tires to test for various attributes. Assume they're inflating them on a rim and checking for radial and lateral true within a specified tolerance of +/- 5.0% (which would make your 0.125" issue fall Out Of Spec by +1.25%). A manufacturer with a high quality assurance level will rarely use an AQL (Acceptable Quality Level) weaker than 1.0%, meaning that 1 out of 100 items are allowed to fail specification. Assume Schwalbe is running a very tight ship and they use a 0.25% AQL, meaning 1 out of 400 items is an allowable failure. Of the 200 tires selected for testing, if 1 fails, then the production lot is considered passable. If 2 fail, then the entire lot of 5,000 is considered failing and the failure mode is subject to departmental review before determining if the failed attribute is truly a reason to scrap the lot. (e.g. A 6.25% wobble would be a true use failure as outlined here. A crooked sidewall label might get let through if it's not deemed too far OOS).

SO, long story short: Schwalbe probably only looks at 200 of every 5,000 tires they make. 4,800 of them just go into a box and get shipped out. It's possible that there are 13 of those 4,800 tires that have problems, and you might have gotten one.
Don't badmouth the company for it. Follow your warranty procedure and get your replacement/refund.

Disclaimer: The numbers above, with the exception of those related directly to the ANSI Z1.4 sampling attributes, are completely pulled out of my arse. I have no idea what Schwalbe's actual QA testing policy is. This information is for example only.

The performance forte brand slick in 60tpi. The nashbar slick is 66tpi and like 10grams lighter. Not the same tire. I'd go with nashbar for the win.

Never did see the picture though. Must not be that popular. Over and out. Pedal to the metal. Later on dudes!