johnny5isalive

I'm thinking about buying a continental ultra sport or this tire

https://www.bikesonline.com/kenda-kou...-road-tire.htm

for my fixie. Not sure which

jimmytango

Get the Continental.

TejanoTrackie 

+1 Kenda is krap.

jimmytango

In fairness, I have a set of Kenda Kwik-Rollers on my bike. Came stock with it. I'm probably pushing 4000 miles on them, still have tread, and rarely use my brakes. The Contis are a much better tire though.

Deshi

I use continental gatorskins or panaracer pasela tour guards. Pleased with both.

Scrodzilla

In my experience, Ultra Sports suck. If you're going to get a Conti, get something better.

TejanoTrackie 

I guess you've got a good point there. Namely, cheap tires, regardless of brand, are mostly gonna suck. All the cheap tires that have come stock on my bikes have sucked, and I've always seen big improvements with better ones like Panaracers and Contis.

TejanoTrackie 

My Kilo WT came with Kwik-Rollers and I've renamed them Slo-Rollers. Lots of rolling resistance, very noisy, seat poorly and very unround. Promptly replaced them with Panaracer Pasela TGs, which despite being wider roll much better and are perfectly round. The Kwik-Rollers found a new home on the Vilano, which is worthy of their crappyness.

yummygooey

Just wait for BonkTown to have those Continental Grand Prix tires up for $20-something again.

jimmytango

I agree that they suck, I just don't want to replace them until they absolutely need it.

Dannihilator

Right now I am trying out a set of Continental GatorHardshells in a 700x23, so far I really like them.

If you want a decent folding tire that isn't insanely expensive look into the serfas seca rs's.

striknein

++Serfas. They're kinda noisy and not the fastest rolling tire out there, but they're very good for the price.

BigglyPuff

Maybe a survey of tire preferences stickied somewhere would be helpful. Seems like threads like this come up once a month or so.

Since you're going to buy a replacement, I'd go with a gatorskin or vittoria randonneur. I need to replace my front soon, but I'll go with the tire until it consistently fails me, and by that I mean if I get like 2 flats on them. For ultra sports, my LBS guy said that Ultras are good tires based on his experience, and he knows way more about bikes than I do. But I know a couple guys on here had bad experiences.

Gatorskins, Randos and Armadillos seem to three of the highly regarded tires on here, along with thick slicks and a few others. I want to try the Schwalbes up on retrogression at some point.

late

+1

Best midsize midprice tire.

ben4345

My vote is for gatorskins, but it would be nice to know what your priorities are. Rolling resistance, cornering, price, high mileage..........

late

I only had gatorskins on for one ride.

They had a hard ride.

My feeling about all this is that Vittoria has cyclists making tires for cyclists.

Tires like the gatorskin is going to be faster because it's lighter, but I found the Rando
surprisingly quick for it's weight. It rolls well. It lasts a long time, doesn't cost a lot,
handles reasonably well.

My current tire is the Vittoria Rando Hyper. But I think the smallest size it comes in is 32c.

YMMV, of course.

ben4345

I used to ride Vittoria Diamante pro, before the Gatorskins. The Diamante pro's were not worth the trouble for commuting, after about 1K miles, I had so many flats. My girlfriend insisted that she would buy me a new set of tires.

I am almost at 500 miles with a gatorskin in front and 4seasons in the back. So far, no flats, and my legs feel very little difference in rolling resistance.

But with tires, the YMMV needs to be in big letters. Like this...
YMMV

bbattle

Get the Ultra Race.

bbattle

Tires are like saddles; it's a personal thing.

If you are doing a lot of city riding with lots of stop and go, and slow riding; racing tires should not be high on your list. While I tend to go for the more 'racy' tires with good traction and ultra-smooth rolling, I know I'm not going to get the mileage out of them like I would some kevlar belted commuter tires. But puncture resistant tires to me feel like rocks. But then I'm using 700c x 23 and 700c x 25 tires. Larger commuter tires probably wouldn't feel so sluggish and brick-hard.

I also have the luxury of being able to afford more expensive tires(one of the few perks of being "old"). I put some Conti Ultra Sports on my wife's mixte. Since it's an upright geometry bike, the tires ride fine; nobody's using this bike on velodrome.

xavier853

I ran ultra sports for a while on my old Peugeot. Lasted for about ~1.5 years.

late

The Diamante has little in common with the Rando, for one thing, the Rando would weigh about twice as much if it came in the same size.

It's got more rubber, and more of a belt.

GMJ

I ride a Gator Hardshell up front with a thickslick on the back. Both 25s. I'm pretty happy with the setup. Since I choose to skid, I like having cheap tires in the back.

I'll eventually bump the back to a 28. I've been debating between getting another slick or giving a rando a try, but I have ***** hands and heard that they are brutal to mount.

Lilcphoto

I continue to get a great deal on Michelin Pro3 Race tires... I love them, and I haven't experienced anything negative with them. I do have a set of Ultra Sports and the Pro3's are a noticeable improvement.

I am thinking of trying a set of krylion's next, but until I find a good deal on those vs. pro's I'll stick with pro's

zx108

The Seca's get chewed up pretty quickly. They are a decent tire and pretty light but not the most durable.

Conti 4 seasons are nice tires, although a little pricey. I put them on the bike at the end of the summer and I can't complain.

The Michelin pro race is decent too but doesn't get a whole lot of milage, more of a performance tire then some others. However I had Michelin axial pros and I thought they were pretty nice tires so I wouldn't put Michelin to the side.

If your looking for a good durable tire I'd bite the bullet and get the gatorskin hardshell. A little heavy but if you don't mind that they are great as far as a super durable tire goes.

gilmatic

Whatever happened to the thickslicks that were all the wild not too long ago? Do any of you guys still ride them?