Tyres and Punctures

When I changed the knobbly mountain bike tyres on the Townsend I had two criteria for the new tyres:

1 - They should be slicks or semi slicks (I want to go a bit faster)

2 - They should have puncture protection (Punctures are a pain in the butt)

I bought two different tyres to experiment and see how they fare. The current MTB (MounTain Bike) tyres were 26x1.95, I decided that I would stick with fairly fat tyres to keep the ride nice and comfortable - this bike is no speed demon so it might as well be comfy :)

For the rear I bought a 26x1.95 Schwalbe City Jet which features Schwalbe's puncture protection system where an extra belt of rubber is built into the tyre to stop sharp objects penetrating the tyre. Higher end Schwalbe tyres use kevlar and other exotic materials.

For the front I bought a 26x1.75 Continental City Contact tyre which features Continental's 'Safety System' where the protective belt is made from kevlar & polyamide filaments. As this tyre is on the front I decided to go down a bit on size.

 So far I've clocked up about 200 miles on these tyres and to date no punctures, which is excellent especially as the local farmers have been cutting the hedges and there are plenty of thorns and other debris on the country lanes at the moment. Compared to the knobbly MTB they are super smooth and make for a much more pleasant ride. Grip seems to be fine, even on damp roads but I havn't pushed them the limits yet.

These tyres will probably last for about a year for the mileage I cover, but I've already got my eye on what will replace them :) Tyre technology has moved on a lot in recent years, the Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres offer the ultimate punture protection, they are currently available on Amazon being sold by Wiggle (Wiggle are a well known and respected online cycle retailer). According to Schwalbe even a drawing pin will not be able to puncture the tyre, very impressive!

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