Schwalbe Big Apple MTB Tyre

Advantages: Make an MTB better on road
Disadvantages: Can be hard to find. No good off road

...Continental have produced the Grand Prix tyre in mtb size. 26" x 1" It has the same tread pattern as the road tyre and is very light (c.200g) Foldable too - with a kevlar bead I rode them on my Specialised mtb over the summer on a commute (8 miles each way) and they are superb for use on the road. It is the closest to a road bike tyre that I have ever seen, is very responsive and feels fast! If you ride an mtb mostly on the road and can feel the energy sapping from your legs with big knobbly tyres, you could do far worse than get a pair of these! They seem very durable too and can be inflated to decent pressures too - I ran them at close to 100 psi They are quite rare in shops and I had to search through a few on line stores to find one that listed them and had them in stock.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Good quality components, well built.
Disadvantages: Rather heavy, front suspension.

...Not a bad bike at all, but it's failing is that it can't make up it's mind if it's one thing or the other. It's set up to be a light use MTB / rough towpath bike with semi-knobbly tyres, front suspension and a bouncy seatpost. As a MTB, it's too frail, as a city commuter it's too heavy and bouncy. It's ideal use would be taking the kids for Sunday rides around forestry trails. Using mine for a 10 mile hilly commute, mainly on cycle paths, I felt mine was let down by the front suspension and the poor Tioga tyres. I changed the tyres to semi-slicks which helped, and swapped the seat post to a solid one to which let me put the power down better. The front suspension still made the bike far heavier than it needed to be (36 lb including a rack) and the suspension saps your effort when pedalling hard. Along the flat this wan't too much... Read review

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Advantages: Good durability, great for all day rides
Disadvantages: None

...large mileage on these tyres. Despite this, the wear has been minimal. Something which helps with this is the fact that, unlike many MTB tyres these days, the Fire XC Pros aren't front and rear specific. What the means is that whereas many tyres come in a set of two, one designed for the front and one designed for the rear, the Fire XC Pro can be installed at either end of the bike, simply putting the tread a different way around depending on which wheel you're putting it on. The practical upshot of this is that when you notice that your back tyre is starting to wear, you can just swap it for the relatively unmolested front tyre. Marvelous. All in all, I'm really impressed with these tyres, but there's one really important issue that I've not addressed yet. Colour. As mountain bikers, colour is the single most important thing about... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful