What Post! I've Been Watching the Tour!

I have been riding and watching the Tour and the blog has been on the back burner. But I do have a few things to post from over the weekend. So I will leave you with something today...

For the last couple of weeks, I have been doing a lot of fire road riding. I know that the best ride for the Devil's Backbone is a cross bike and I will not have mine by that time and I am going to make do with my Bontrager. With this in mind, I need to pick the best tire set-up. So I have been doing my own Bikewright tire test.



On the left, I have a Bontrager Connection 1.95 410g which is the tire I used at last year's DBMCX and I have been riding for the last couple of weeks. On the right, I have a WTB All Terrainasaurus 1.95 655g tire. I had used this tire way back in 99 when cyclocross was still an off-beat sport around here.

First, let me start off by saying that I think both tires are out of production and Bontrager doesn't make what I would call a replacement model tire in 26". But it looks like this would be the replacement for the WTB tire.

The Bontrager Connection is a good tire that performs well. The two things I notice is the front wants to wash out a little with speed in a curve and the rear keeps good traction on an uphill climb out of the saddle like this.



The WTB All Terrainasaurus is a solid tire on the road. I could also tell it was a heavier tire. Hard to believe that you can tell the difference of 245g. The front hooks up in the same speed curve and the rear loses traction on the uphill.

So I am thinking about running the Terrainasaurus on the front and run the Connection on the back and see how that works. It might give me the best of both worlds! I have seen a post on another site that said that a good tire might be the Panaracer Pasela. I think this would be okay on the road but I would not ride it on a gravel road which half of this course is.

I think I might check out this blog to get some ideas on some tires.

Comments

Dan O said…
Always fun trying out different tires.

I think the narrower 26" mountain tires, 1.95 or so, are out of fashion and getting hard to find. Do a eBay search, it's amazing how much new old stock shows up there.

I've shocked how well the Kenda Small Block 8 tires work on my 29er. Supposed to be a hard pack condition tire, but I've been using 'em everywhere. They do pack up with mud at times, but not as bad as you'd think. And they roll really well.

They make a 26" version as well - not sure how they would for gravel roads - but I'd bet not bad.
Brian Wright- said…
I had been kicking the idea around about the Small Block 8 tires. They look like they would do well on the gravel.

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