Fitting Slicks to Mtb?

Redisle

Hey guys,
I got this bike recently, Its a Giant Boulder mountain bike (at least I think its a mountain bike..)
Anyway, Since Im nearly always using this on the road and dont plan on actually doing any offroading anytime soon (generally go on ~10mile cycles every day or two with 2 other people) I was thinking of buying a pair of 26" slicks and fitting them to this bike.. to reduce rolling resistance and increase speed.. because my brother is currently cycling an old Viking racer from the 70's and its impossible to keep up..so I was thinking of buying something like this or this from ebay.. Im just wondering if fitting these will give me a big improvement on my bike and could fitting slimmer tyres damage my rims? (current tyres are 26" x1.95)
And one other thing.. will my current tubes fit inside 1.5 slicks?

Thanks for any help,

ab

Ciaran500

They will work fine on that bike. I used to use a pair similar to that before I started to bring the bike off road. You will probably need new tubes to fit them.

Just be aware that you loose all grip on grass or mud and unless you get a pair with puncture protection they are very easy to puncture. I'd go for the second pair btw, 40PSI seems very low for a road tyre.

Itsfixed

kendas haven't got the best reputation, from what i can gather. You should consider Continental City contacts or Panaracer Paselas or Hi-Roads. Good puncture protection with both and low rolling resistance.

In terms of needing new tubes, depends on what size/thickness you get. If you get 1.75" or 1.5" then no need to change tube. If you get a 1", which will be a bit faster and lighter, then you may need a thinner tube.

cunnins4

Itsfixed wrote:

kendas haven't got the best reputation, from what i can gather. You should consider Continental City contacts or Panaracer Paselas or Hi-Roads. Good puncture protection with both and low rolling resistance.

In terms of needing new tubes, depends on what size/thickness you get. If you get 1.75" or 1.5" then no need to change tube. If you get a 1", which will be a bit faster and lighter, then you may need a thinner tube.

Try a 1.25 or 1.33 - huge difference. I was running 26x1.25s on my mtb for a year until i ruined the back one by not using tyre levers to fix punctures. Went back to 1.5s and i'm regretting it now-it's like cycling with a trailer attached compared to the 1.25s.

oobydooby

Hi, I did something similar with my Trek which is almost identical to your bike. I put specialized fatboys on it (20 euro each from cycleways). However, although it was noticeably faster, the ride became much less comfortable and whenever I kept my u-lock on the handlebars (for my short commute) the rattling was really excessive.

daymobrew

Your tube will say that width tyres it will handle. For example this pair will work for 26x1.3 up to 26x1.75.

Those DSI ones on eBay sound suspect - 40psi is very low max pressure.
I used to use Continental SportContact 26x1.3, then Continental Ultra Gatorskin 26x1.1 but moved to Specialize Nimbus Armadillo 26x1.5 for the extra puncture protection. Their max pressures were 85, 100 and 80 respectively. Keep them hard and you'll go fast.

cunnins4

Yeah, 40psi is very low for slicks-usually double that is necessary afaik. On my 1.5s i put them up near 100psi. They need to be rock solid otherwise you don't get the benefit of them-you might as well use knobbies if you use them soft.

The rattling/shaking isn't that noticable after a while. The ease of cycling and increase in speed is worth it.

Civilian_Target

Same. Neither of the tyres you linked to look like much. Take a look at your wheels, see what the narrowest width they'll handle is and get some puncture-proof slicks in that size. They'll last forever*, but have comparatively poor handling in the rain and off road.

* Well, 4000km....

Redisle

Thanks for all the advice guys.. I am going to go browse the online bike stores as ebay dosent seem to have that great of a selection, I dont really care too much If it makes the bike a bit uncomfortable.. Ive cycled bikes with slicks and its unbelieveable how easy it is compared to my current mtb tyres, I dont plan on going cycling in the rain anyway so poor handling in that case should not be a problem