Tire Size?

In article <[email hidden]>,

medegraa said:

This may be a silly question but here goes anyway. I have a mountain
bike with 26"x2.10" tires on it. I'm thinking about replacing my
current tires with something a little more road friendly (where I do
most of my riding). When shopping for new tires, do I need a 2.10" or
can I use something a bit narrower on my rims, say 1.90".

Any tire made for 26" mountain bike rims should work fine.
If you're doing all your riding on paved roads,
I would get a 26x1.5" slick tire.

medegraa said:

Hi all,

This may be a silly question but here goes anyway. I have a mountain
bike with 26"x2.10" tires on it. I'm thinking about replacing my
current tires with something a little more road friendly (where I do
most of my riding). When shopping for new tires, do I need a 2.10" or
can I use something a bit narrower on my rims, say 1.90". I really
don't know. Does anyone have any suggestions on replacement tires for
me?

1.25" or 1.5" are really good road sizes for 26" wheels and should fit
the vast majority of rims. That's still plenty wide compared to a
racing bike tire. Remember to pick up some narrower tubes as well.

If you're in the US, grab a pair of Performance house brand slicks for
$9/per. Worth a shot. I think they roll great:
http://www.performancebike.com/shop/profile.cfm?SKU=15304&subcategory_ID=5425

Plenty of other nice ones: Kenda Kwest, Avocet Fasgrip, Tom Slick, etc.

Per medegraa:

Quoted message said:

When shopping for new tires, do I need a 2.10" or
can I use something a bit narrower on my rims, say 1.90". I really
don't know. Does anyone have any suggestions on replacement tires for
me?

Off road, I ride 2.4" WTB Mutano Raptors at 35-40 psi.

For what I call "road riding", I use Performance Bike Shop's 1.25" slicks at
80-90 psi.

Same rims. No problem. I do, however, need to re-calibrate my speedo between
the two tires.
--
PeteCresswell

medegraa says...

Quoted message said:

Hi all,

This may be a silly question but here goes anyway. I have a mountain
bike with 26"x2.10" tires on it. I'm thinking about replacing my
current tires with something a little more road friendly (where I do
most of my riding). When shopping for new tires, do I need a 2.10" or
can I use something a bit narrower on my rims, say 1.90". I really
don't know. Does anyone have any suggestions on replacement tires for
me?

Thanks,

Mike.

Not a silly question. Some rims are narrow and some are wide. If you
have wide and beefy downhill style rims, you may not be able to go below
1.9" and stay within manufacturer specs. More likely your rims are
narrower than this, so you should be able to go a lot narrower on the
tire, at least to a 1.5", maybe as low as 1". You can check the
manufacturer web site or www.sheldonbrown.com under the tire size
section for more info.