Mountain Bike Forums

I’ve recently decided to start cycling the 17-mile round trip to work and back. Finding it OK, probably not pushing myself too hard, but then I don’t want to give myself a heart-attack or anything! I’m not at a particularly great fitness level atm!

I’m riding a Specialized ‘Hard-Rock’ Mountain bike though, not a road bike, is there anything I can do to make road-riding easier?

Am I wasting a lot of energy using off-road tyres? Would I really notice the difference if I changed tyres?

Without going to the expense of changing tyres, what else can I do? What tyre pressures should I use for the road, would adjusting the shocks help?

Cheers

Hey Ben,
Check the tyre pressure rating on the side wall of your tyres, most will go up to 60psi. Changing the tyres to slicks will make a BIG difference. We sell slicks for MTB’s for £15 each that you can get up to 80psi. This will reduce the rolling resistance significantly. I would bang on some slicks and watch the miles fly by! Make your forks as hard as your can this will also increase the efficiency on the road too! Have fun J.

Cheers Jamieboy, I took that advice and checked my sidewalls. Mine are specc’d for 80psi, so I pumped them to the max and the ride seemed a lot faster! In fact my 52 minute ride home took me only 40minutes!!!
The ride was rock hard though, but I guess that’s the price you pay!

BenB - 18 June 2008 03:31 PM

In fact my 52 minute ride home took me only 40minutes!!!

Crikey!

Slicks will knock even more time off as they are a lot faster than knobblies. So when you’ve got the budget I’d stick a set of them on.

I’m thinking now the original time of 52 mins on my homeward journey may have been partially that I’m not used to cycling! My ride to work hasn’t changed too much at all. But I find I am really affected by having a headwind. There’s one nice fast downhill part to the journey that I look forward to and makes the whole ride worth it, and this morning it was pure effort against the wind!

I actually bought some cheap semi-slicks elsewhere, but on trying to fit them they are just so damn tight to get onto the rim that I tried three times, and each time the almightly effort to lever them on caused me to pinch/tear the innertube in loads of places! For some reason I just couldn’t manage to avoid pinching the tube. Maybe the tube is too large for the tyres (These tyres have a much smaller sidewall than the ones that came on the bike) When I gave up on the semis and went back to the original tyres they were lovely and soft and pulled straight on without even a tyre lever!

Don’t suppose anyone has any tips to make cheap non-stretchy tyres go on easier do they??

BenB - 25 June 2008 04:57 PM

Don’t suppose anyone has any tips to make cheap non-stretchy tyres go on easier do they??

Put some talcum powder around the edge of the rim where you need to push the tyre into the rim and the job should be made much easier.

I just did this while putting on Specialized 1.25 slicks onto my atomic lab mtb rims.

Remember to wipe off the rims and tyre afterwards