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Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy...The Next Chapter
Back in 2017 I upped the fun factor on my 1997 Nishiki Blazer MTB-Commuter by going big with a pair of 26x1.85 light, supple and smooth WTB Slicks.
( https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting...ig-bouncy.html https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting...-part-two.html ) In 2019 I converted it to drop bars and fell in love with the bike all over again. The bike gets studded and treaded 26x1.65 Suomi Nokian W106s in the winter, which while allowing me to commute and ride in the snow and ice also serve to remind me how wonderful the big, meaty, but light WTB Slicks have been. Then last week, halfway to work on the first ride of the season with the WTB Slicks a sharp metal fragment of a machine screw tore into the sidewall causing a flat. I've used more robust tires, but I don't enjoy them I like tires with supple sidewalls, so I use tire liners, and sidewall breaches are a risk I take. I couldn't find the WTB slicks in the 26" size (which was slimmed to 26x1.5 so it would be narrower), so I looked at other options. As you know, it's very hard these days to find an LBS that stocks low-demand products, and one can't be sure what a tire feels like buying online. I was going to go to the local LBS's and see what they had, but first, out of desperation I looked at the bike co-op (no WTB Slicks and nothing else I liked), then I looked at Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for possibly a used WTB SLick tire and found a set of new in-the-package Fincci 26x2.125 lighweight almost-slicks, one of the alternate tires I was considering. The seller had bought them for a bike but stopped riding and sold the bike before even opening the package. The Fincci 26x2.125s were unblemished, with no signs of ever being mounted, much less used...and the price was half the going price. They were almost as light as the WTBs, and almost as slick, and at 1.125" wide, they were as wide as the original MTB tires the bike came with, so I was pretty certain they'd fit. I bought and mounted them yesterday and calibrated the speedo. Even though they are noticeably wider than the previous tires, the actual roll out length was 1% less...2073mm vs 2076 for the WTBs. A quick 8 mile ride to a known location and back on a known route showed the calibration was dead-on. The assesment: The Finccis felt almost the same. They felt just a little bit heavier and felt just a little bit slower and just a little bit less smooth...but even more secure at speed. And about that speed... When I first tried the WTBs they felt slow, but surprisingly yielded higher average speeds than the harder, heavier tires they replaced. I realized that the lack of road chatter made the tires feel slow, while their light suppleness made them faster. And so it was with the 26x2.125 Finccis. My average speed, out and back was 12.9 mph, where as the previous tires usually yielded an average for that run of 12.5. I did notice the hills were slower and tougher with the new tires, but the downhill sections were slightly faster and easier. Also, as it had just rained and continued drizzling I noticed the fenders were still able to keep the spray from puddles off the bike and me. I bought this bike new in 1997 when I was 35. I'm now 61 and both the bike and I are almost un-recognizable from our earlier incarnations. I have a couple of light, skinny-tire road bikes, but thundering down the road in the drops on a bike that weighs about as much as both of those combined with tires as wide as both of those tires combined makes me feel half my age and twice as happy. https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...864876a073.jpg https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...085d080048.jpg |
Originally Posted by BobbyG
(Post 22912495)
Back in 2017 I upped the fun factor on my 1997 Nishiki Blazer MTB-Commuter by going big with a pair of 26x1.85 light, supple and smooth WTB Slicks.
( https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting...ig-bouncy.html https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting...-part-two.html ) In 2019 I converted it to drop bars and fell in love with the bike all over again. The bike gets studded and treaded 26x1.65 Suomi Nokian W106s in the winter, which while allowing me to commute and ride in the snow and ice also serve to remind me how wonderful the big, meaty, but light WTB Slicks have been. Then last week, halfway to work on the first ride of the season with the WTB Slicks a sharp metal fragment of a machine screw tore into the sidewall causing a flat. I've used more robust tires, but I don't enjoy them I like tires with supple sidewalls, so I use tire liners, and sidewall breaches are a risk I take. I couldn't find the WTB slicks in the 26" size (which was slimmed to 26x1.5 so it would be narrower), so I looked at other options. As you know, it's very hard these days to find an LBS that stocks low-demand products, and one can't be sure what a tire feels like buying online. I was going to go to the local LBS's and see what they had, but first, out of desperation I looked at the bike co-op (no WTB Slicks and nothing else I liked), then I looked at Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for possibly a used WTB SLick tire and found a set of new in-the-package Fincci 26x2.125 lighweight almost-slicks, one of the alternate tires I was considering. The seller had bought them for a bike but stopped riding and sold the bike before even opening the package. The Fincci 26x2.125s were unblemished, with no signs of ever being mounted, much less used...and the price was half the going price. They were almost as light as the WTBs, and almost as slick, and at 1.125" wide, they were as wide as the original MTB tires the bike came with, so I was pretty certain they'd fit. I bought and mounted them yesterday and calibrated the speedo. Even though they are noticeably wider than the previous tires, the actual roll out length was 1% less...2073mm vs 2076 for the WTBs. A quick 8 mile ride to a known location and back on a known route showed the calibration was dead-on. The assesment: The Finccis felt almost the same. They felt just a little bit heavier and felt just a little bit slower and just a little bit less smooth...but even more secure at speed. And about that speed... When I first tried the WTBs they felt slow, but surprisingly yielded higher average speeds than the harder, heavier tires they replaced. I realized that the lack of road chatter made the tires feel slow, while their light suppleness made them faster. And so it was with the 26x2.125 Finccis. My average speed, out and back was 12.9 mph, where as the previous tires usually yielded an average for that run of 12.5. I did notice the hills were slower and tougher with the new tires, but the downhill sections were slightly faster and easier. Also, as it had just rained and continued drizzling I noticed the fenders were still able to keep the spray from puddles off the bike and me. I bought this bike new in 1997 when I was 35. I'm now 61 and both the bike and I are almost un-recognizable from our earlier incarnations. I have a couple of light, skinny-tire road bikes, but thundering down the road in the drops on a bike that weighs about as much as both of those combined with tires as wide as both of those tires combined makes me feel half my age and twice as happy. https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...864876a073.jpg https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...085d080048.jpg |
I know, right? A sprung saddle made more sense when The bike had straight bars and allowed the option of a more upright position. I was going to change it to something narrower when I converted it to drop bars, but at my age if something is not causing a problem I'm not changing it. ( The straight bars were aggravating my wrists which was why I had changed them.)
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I can't explain why happy Jack would ride anyway, anyhow, anywhere
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