MTB Slicks?

[MElliottUK]

I am planning to start commuting on my Felt hard tail MTB, on a normal road run i would average about 13-15mph with little effort, if i was to get slick tyres how much of an increase of speed would i expect (guestimate)?

Also my felt is about 14kgs, would there be a big advantage in getting a hybrid vs a MTB with slicks?

My route will be 50% road, 50% along a river (to cut out all the nast traffic, and its a shorter distance).

Thanks

[anonymous-user]

not much, you could run either of these as good road tyres and summer tyres thus not needing to change them if you fancied a good hack around some local trails...
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/bontrager/xr1-...http://www.evanscycles.com/products/continental/ra...

[BOR]

I switched from winter tyres to summer tyres at the weekend, and today was my first commute on them.

12 km across city:

Schwalbe Racing Ralph = 30mins
Schwalbe Kojak slick = 25mins

The Racing Ralphs are a pretty fast XC tyre, but the slicks are noticably faster - I guess about 20% more speed.

But the most important thing is that you can DESTROY anyone who is on knobblies, and unless they catch up at a red light and see that you are on slicks, will think that you are the daddy.

[clonmult]

When I first started commuting on my MTB, I put up with the knobbly tyres for a month before changing over to some schwalbes (can't remember the model). Gave me a couple of mph more, so a slightly reduced journey time. Also considerably more planted feel on the roads of london.

[prand]

I can heartily recommend slicks. I got a set of Schwalbe City Jet tyres from Wiggle for my MTB. They are much smoother than knobblies and allow me to cruies at 18-20mph.

Don't forget to pump them up really hard - to 60+psi, rolling resistance is even better then.

Edited by prand on Monday 27th April 15:09

[Beyond Rational]

I recently switched from 2.1 inch worn knobly tyres to 1.5 inch michelin country rock tyres and the difference is vast. So much nicer riding on the road without the tyre roar.

[pdV6]

Swapping to fat slicks from knobblies, I reckon I gained an average 2mph or so.

Pump 'em up as hard but bear in mind that most MTB wheelsets are only rated to about 60psi, so stop there even if the tyres are good for 100+

I've used Schwalbe Big Apples and liked 'em. Currently got a Continental City Contact on the rear which I prefer. When the Big Apple on the front wears out I think I'll get another City Contact to replace it.

[Deerfoot]

I commute on Panaracer Cityslickers, the slicks are so much faster than XC tyres.

I too thought about getting a hybrid but tried slicks on my hardtail first, glad I did to be honest.

[thepickle]

Last week I went from Michelin XC Dry 2's to Maxxis Xenith's which are slick in the true sense of the word, totally bald! This is on my 22/23lb fully rigid GT I only use on road these days. I've only been out once on them so far but I'd say an average increase of at least 2mph as pdv6 said, but I managed to forget to put my computer on the bike even though seeing how much faster they were was the main reason for going out I average around 15mph dead on the Mich's on my regular 40 mile road route so looking forward to the increase with these. Obviously the decreased rolling resistance is fantastic, much less effort, I was even thinking I was undergeared at one point (44t big ring), I beat a learner driver between two local roudabouts anyway so 30mph sprint a lot easier than on knobblys . Nice weight saving as well particularly as I got some super light tubes with them, front end much more lively and willing to lift (hopping pot holes etc!), 360g each they are. I ran 60psi first time out which felt about right although I may go a touch higher on the rear in future, they're rated to 85psi but that'll be too much. I wouldn't use slicks on anything other than tarmac though, I've got some Conti Travel Contact's (ridiculously heavy by the way with punture protection) that I ran for a while which have a little tread on them and even they were hopeless the second you touched a blade of (anything other than bone dry) grass, so a full slick would be interesting! I've got some Bontrager Satellite's as well, fast rolling but still with a decent amount of tread, bit heavy, an ok weight/tread compromise, but plenty that are better.