Who Makes The Best 26 inch Tyres – for commuting retro builds

Today we look at who is making the best 26 tyres.

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[Music] so I hear you’ve picked up a 26-in mountain bike you’re thinking about maybe converting it to a commuter well maybe you’re just going to restore it you’ve started Gathering all your parts you’ve got your handlebars you’ve got this you got that but you’re stuck on tires and need a bit of advice well you come to the right place I’m kind of obsessed with tires and I’ve used quite a few of them now and the ones I haven’t used I know quite a bit about and uh I hopefully can help you guide your way through the reasonbly limited amount of tires that’re out there for the 26in mountain bike um so without further Ado uh let’s go into this I’m not going to do this any particular order um but I will start with my favorite Tire which is the dth by Maxis the dth comes in a couple of sizes um I tend to only ride the 2.5S and then the 23s um the 2.5S will fit on pretty much most of the Retro bikes uh cuz obviously a lot of the stays on the rear triangle are a little bit narrow uh so 2.1 2.15 is probably a good place to be um but the the actual tires themselves are SE semi slick so they’re designed for dirt jumping and BMX and things like that um and they are generally quite light as well like they do have a wire bead and a folding the folding ones weigh next to nothing so if you are on a big retro mountain bike that’s quite heavy uh any kind of components you put on there that you can squeeze some pounds um tires are a good place to start the one thing I would say with dth is uh they aren’t the most punch resistant being quite a thin casing and they do kind of get popped quite easily by glass shards and if you live in a city like me um there’s a lot of glass around so it’s something you need to be prepared for um I really really really like the way they feel and they roll even in the wet um so I kind of weigh that with just making sure sure I don’t get punches if I can help it I really like the 2.3 as well um if you have a bike that fits them I definitely go for 2.3 just because that extra cushion especially for around cities and bumps and any kind of like that rougher terrain uh it just makes that ride a little bit nicer and a bit more cushioned so yeah dth probably my most used and one of my favorite tires before we move away from Maxis honorable mention would be uh the uh icons uh icons are quite good they’re a cross country uh tread Tire um they’re a little bit more chunky so they are more kind of like gravel passs and things like that um if you use them for commute they’ probably be fine cuz there’s not they’re not that bad they’re quite fast rolling um but they’re they’re definitely more if you were going to use them for like gravels a bit of you know gravel riding basically but I really rate them really good tires and the other one is hookworm I’ve never actually used hookworm but I know a lot of people do um the balloon tires they are 2.5 so they are huge huge you do have to get a c a certain frame size to be able to fit these things on there um even Fork you might even struggle on some of the Retro bikes um but these things are again they’re semi slick um they’re pretty popular for for people that you know are in rougher terrain places or kind of like poor roads cuz they do soak up a lot of that kind of bumpiness but the difference with those compared to the dth is they are much heavier casing so they’re much better for punch res distance there’s a lot of words I’m probably Wen up in this video resistan but being a lot thicker and much wider as well you’re going to get bit more resistance so they are going to be slower um generally the more narrow Tire the more kind of or less resistance you’re going to get and you are going to be a bit quicker the thicker The Wider the tire come on get your words out a little bit slower depending on the dread I’m going to contradict myself quite a lot in this video I Feel the next one is another tie that I’ve not actually used it’s the cont ental contact Sports uh I have a couple of friends that use these uh actually most of them actually use them on 700 C Wheels but they do sell them in 26 as well um but they are essentially again uh something this it’s a slick tire that has a little bit more tread to it they’re really soft compound uh so they’re not the most longlasting tires um but they’re really really good in grip especially in the wet uh which is obviously a big deal if you’re commuting things like that um the other thing with Continental Tires being the biggest one of the biggest brands in the world um means the tires are quite cheap you can get them really reasonably on a lot of sites uh so if you some want something that’s a little bit more than a lower price and a bit easier to find Continental contact sports are pretty decent now let’s move on to a brand that we all know that I probably won’t be pronouncing correctly which is schi that was probably the closest I’ve ever got it schi actually make quite a lot of tires in 26 in um and they make a lot of good decent tires and a lot of their tires come in different compounds as well so depending on where you are in the world and kind of the train you’re doing there’s a lot of lot of options but there’s two big ones that stick out of me especially when it comes to commuting which is the Big Apple um and then the belly Bonkers which we’ll talk about in a second the Big Apple is a commuter uh Tire um it’s one of the bigger chunker tires that they do which is uh cuz it goes up to 2.35 I believe it is um so you do get that big cushioning so if want them a bit blown up that’s a good one to go for also with schw they’re obviously a massive company as well so big apples in particular you can find quite cheaply before I move on to the Bonkers though the one tire that I know a lot of you are probably going to put in the comments if I don’t mention it is actually the marathon and the marathon is another commuter Tire made by schi and it is near enough bomb prooof the casing is really really thick it’s super super resistant to like punches and things like that uh and I don’t know about the city bikes and of the world but in the UK all the city bikes all the Boris bikes all those bikes have marathan tires on them because they are bulletproof I think even line bikes have them now um so that is if you want some that you’re pretty much not going to get punches on and stuff like that that’s one to go for they’re not the most pretty tires I think they only go up to maybe 2.1 um so they’re you know they’re nothing cool but they will definitely get you to a a top and in the winter in particular you’ll be good so a really good one to go for but uh if you are looking for something that does look good and something that you’re going to get the likes on your Instagram account and people in the street going to be like nice tires it’s the Billy Bonkers Billy Bonkers are probably one of the most controversial tires out there because everybody talks about them but I don’t know many people that actually really truly love them and I’ve probably just opened up a fire in range in the comments below by saying that um but I still put them on my bikes even though I don’t like them that much the reason I don’t like them that much is the the tread um they’re not really designed for Road they are a dirt jumping Tire the Retro Builders and commuters have grabbed hold of cuz they look super cool put them on their bikes and off they after they ride and roll but not so fast they’re also quite thin and Light which are kind of like the dth like we talked about earlier on um so they are probably the most puner T tires that I’ve used on my commute um when I had my Billy bunkers I was getting punches left right and center but they do look very cool there’s nothing there’s not a lot of tires out there that look as good as Billy Bonkers especially on a retro bike the thing as well that I get asked a lot about um there’s three colors for the Billy bunkers there’s black there’s tan and then there’s bronze tan pretty much doesn’t exist anymore um I don’t think they’ve reissued it for a long time um bronze has replaced it it’s not a weirder color that they do now like a lot of people just figured oh these are knockoff Tans or they’ve just changed the color Tans it’s a different tire called bronze um but uh yeah Tans haven’t been made for a while you can sometimes find them still in like smaller tires and um 20-in tires I have a set of 20-in tires anybody who follows the Marine man a long time ago he actually bought some 20in tires thinking they were 26 in tires so that was quite funny sorry Mike um but yeah Billy Bonkers you got to try them if you haven’t tried them you might love them but yeah now onto another tire that is a great one for Star points which is the power P pan racer gravel Kings pan raser it’s not that hard to say the gravel kings are one of those tires that I wanted to try for a very very long time um I was always um andaron about it cuz like everything I heard about them they’re very kind of like sticky they’re not great for Road riding so they’re only really good for gravel um and I don’t really do a lot of gravel riding if I’m going to go out into the forest or out not on the road it’s mountain biking trails and chunky stuff where like the gra Kings aren’t quite there um I was actually lucky enough to uh get given some a while back to kind of like test out and um I was really really impressed the actual casing on the actual tires feels super premium um I don’t know really know how more to Des Des cribe that but a lot of tires either feel really rigid or super soft and just a bit weird there’s something about the panasa tires that just feels quality and that’s what panas is all about they make incredible tires um the they make lots of different compounds I think mine are the SKS which quite sticky um they’re really really good on gravel tracks um they’re super high rolling and they really kind of get through stuff um but I found on the road they were just a little bit sluggish which is what you’d expect for something that’s super sticky and kind of for gravel really the biggest thing with gravel Kings though like some of the best bikes that I’ve see on the internet are rocking some uh some jack gravel Kings like they they look super super cool um I have a bike build in the works that I’m going to be releasing hopefully in the next couple of weeks um and I’m going to be putting the the SKS on it um simply because they would look really really good um so there is definitely an element when it comes to picking tires whether you really want to focus on that really looks good or you want something super super practical so and the last one I’m going to talk about is um what I call my 100 mile Tire um back in June um I rode the ride London 100 miles um and it was basically from London out to like chelsford area and then back again um and I did that on a 26in mountain bike and I ran wtbs fix lick fix lick are quite literally a slick tire that’s all that you have going for you there um the thick is because the case itself is super thick and I mean like you when you hold the tire and put your fingers in there like it is thick thick so it’s very highly punch resistance which is why they’re super popular I’ve ridden over a staple uh which usually is the Staples going straight through your tires and pretty much straight into your Ines done um but I found it I think I may even have a video that I can play here spotted it and I pulled it out and it was good and it’s still got air in it right now it’s not a problem so they’re really really good for that the I I haven’t rid them in like kind of the wetest conditions I don’t know how good they will be cuz they literally are super slick so there’s not any give at all um so I don’t know I don’t know how much they rate for the all year round uh actually I did suggest these tires previously in another video um or maybe on Instagram and monkey shred bought some and um he almost ended up in a canal so uh they’re not great and Slick or wet kind of situations but in the the dry summer like oh my God they were really good and they’re super high rolling and just made the bike feel light and fast uh which is a lot of the time that’s what you’re after um so I highly highly rate them I did 100 miles on them and I honest to God feel like they were part of the reason that it made it as easy as it was easy it was not easy it was really bloody hard I think that’s probably about it that’s um the ones that I would go to obviously I’ve missed a bunch um but I wanted to kind of give you a little bit of an Insight of kind of the tires and the kind of area of tires that I kind of work in um a lot of people ask me what I think about certain tires so I wanted to kind of make this video just to kind of direct people to um but also I did a video a couple videos back which I’ll link here now about deras and I had a few comments saying like part spe specific videos would be really useful um so this is a bit of a series that we’ll start um so if there’s a specific part that you want me to C I go into and kind of talk more about kind of the stuff I use and why I use them um put them in the comments below uh I’ve definitely got a uh handlebar video coming um and uh I do want to talk about forks and headsets especially when it comes to Retro bikes that can get a little bit fiddly uh so that’ll be more of an explanation of the difference between them not necessarily just like Brands to look at but I’ll probably talk about them as well um so yeah more to come also a little update cuz a lot of people have asked about this is as well um the cargo bike is this close to being finished um I can show you the fork I don’t know how well you’ll see you probably can um it’s lacquered and as you can see it also has metal flake on it now as well this bike is going to look unbelievably cool um the frame is can I show you the frame obviously can’t fit the whole thing in the in the in the camera but is [Music] see this is slightly but you see the mou flake it’s ridiculous it’s one of the maddest bikes I’ve painted a long time you see like the fade the metal fake like it’s we’re going to get seen we’re going to be seen on this bike there’s no doubt of that [Music] um it’s wicked it really is so if you want to see me finish that bike um I do suggest subscribing to the channel um cuz that bike will be be I’m building that this Monday so that’ll be coming or tomorrow when you watch this uh and I’ve got another bike coming should I show you the frame I show you the frame I’ve got another rally this one is called the Moon Moon [Music] run but I’ve been looking for a black frame that’s kind of like a decent size and this one is like 22 something like that 21 22 so it’s a big boy it’s what I like so if you are new to the channel and you want to see these builds feel free to subscribe to the channel and if you can’t wait till next week’s video uh this one here is a particularly good [Music] one