Originally Posted by
arty dave
I think you're right barnfind, the World Tours seem to be finished in 27 x 1 1/4.
I have the plain black proteks on one bike and they do ride very nice. The tread is more like a delta cruiser. They were incredibly difficult (tight) to fit to the rim though. I've broken a tyre lever on these tyres! I'm not looking forward to removing them when I get around to changing the rear rim to a 3 speed hub. I may have to pick up some steel core tyre levers to remove them
A tyre I'd like to try in the future is the 27 x 1 /4 Schwalbe HS159 in whitewalls.
Back in the day we used to sell a ton of those Michelin World Tour tires in 27x 1 1/4" gumwall, but I never knew back then they made other sizes and that they came in black wall too.
I was never a fan of 'gum' wall tires, I'd have had them on all my bikes then if they came in black. On some rims they almost looked huge, guys that rode the state parks on their road bikes loved them.
The only other wide 27" tire was a knobby, and most guys didn't want those on the pavement.
I had tried a set of the knobby tires on one bike, it took me all of about 5 miles to decide they were coming off.
Years ago when we had to deal with some of the super tight fitting tires, we kept a bottle of dish soap handy, just a bit of soap usually made the tightest tires slip right on by hand. After they spent some time on the rim inflated, they were rarely an issue.
The worst I remember were some of the narrow Continental tires on Rigida 1320 rims that came on the first Treks and some Motobecane models.
One tire I've not seen in ages was one marked Supertrak, it was a blackwall slick in 27x1 3/8" with a slight raised section down the center with a few direction sipes off to each side.
The owner got them from the same place he used to get solid industrial tires from for bikes being used in a few local factories. I never tried a set but they looked like a good heavy duty tire for risky roads. Back then most of our roads were just oil and stone paved, Until it got packed down and hardened, it was like riding on inch deep crushed glass. If you crashed on that stuff you were picking bits of sharp rock out of your legs. On fresh roads, narrow bike tires would cut through right down to the tar layer. Cleaning that off a bike was a real mess. .
The Protek tires look like a decent tire with some added thickness where it counts.
Is the Protek tire as wide as the World Tour?