Originally Posted by
no motor?
I've been wondering about this lately as I've switched from 26x1.5 to 26x1.9 slicks and then 26x1.95 knobbies. The narrower tires were too painful to ride and had such unpredictable handling that I switched to the 1. 9 slicks for a few weeks. A sidewall failure got me to switch back to the 1.95 knobbies (these were all old tires I had used in the past) with my commute times being about the same and some surprising readings of the speedometer when I thought I was just plodding along. The wider tires use less pressure too, now that we know lower pressures don't mean less speed does anyone know how to figure out what pressures to use? I had been using the maximum listed on the tires for both front and rear before fwiw.
You can often run pressures much lower than the sidewall suggestions (these are written by lawyers, not engineers) so go with the minimum amount of air to keep you up without bottoming out the rim.
Generally, the wider rim you have will prevent pinch flats. You can try it out on your shop floor, experiment with different pressures, hop on and see how much your sidewall gives. You'll be more efficient with less air, but you can't bottom out either so it is a juggling act.
FWIW I am guessing if you can run 26*1.9 you can probably squeeze in 26*2.25 or even 2.35 with no or little tread. I know there are a lot of quality slick tires in that size right now which are worth a shot. Don't worry about tread design, just go with a slick or semi slick tire with the max width and highest TPI you can find. Tubeless is even better as you have no tube to pinch but that's a different thread :-)