tyre choices

[sawman]

I am really enjoying my new to me '97 cro-mo stumpjumper. Having spent a couple of happy hours servicing the brakes and adjusting bits and bobs, I was even able to do a 7 mile ride with the kids at the weekend.
the bike came with fairly new knobbly tyres , which whilst they do their job, I would expect that most of my riding is going to be with the kids on roads and trails rather than proper mountain stuff.

On my last reasonable bike I had tyres which were smoothish in the middle and knobbly at the edges, which seemed to be a nice compromise and reduced the tyre roar at speed, whilst having a bit of bite for muddy days

I'd be grateful for recommendations for tyres that will be more suited to me mainly road /trail based use - my brother thinks he might have some slicks in his shed which I might give a try - will these stand up to light trail use?? and give enough grip on the looser surface of a trail?

[Dizeee]

Specialized Captain Control:

http://www.mbr.co.uk/reviews/tyres/specialized-s-w...

Google for current prices...

[yellowjack]

sawman said:

...I would expect that most of my riding is going to be with the kids on roads and trails rather than proper mountain stuff...

...my brother thinks he might have some slicks in his shed which I might give a try - will these stand up to light trail use?? and give enough grip on the looser surface of a trail?

Don't overthink things too much. T'other day I took my 'best' carbon road bike onto a byway on skinny (23c) slicks and it coped just fine. OK, the recent dry weather has helped, and it'd be no use after rain on shiny stones and roots, but my alternate bike is a 1997 Falcon steel road bike, and that's spent at least 70% of it's recent use off tarmac, on gravel fire roads, hard pack, and even some of the easier Gorrick MTB race sections locally. That currently runs on "so close to slick they might as well be" Continental GP 4Seasons, and I've set some Strava PRs on that, quicker in fact than on my MTB. If your brother is going to give you the slicks to try, you've nothing to loose really. So long as you can pick your lines, and are a half decent bike handler, everything will be fine. Slicks away from tarmac? Not ideal, but they can be a whole barrel of fun at the same time.