Generally, I’m trying to avoid recommending spending money on your bike in theses Noob’s Guides, after all, its the rider not the bike. However, tires are the component that has the greatest significance on your bikes performance. A tire upgrade is the best investment you can make in your bike.
Go Tubeless!!!: There is nothing that will improve the performance and reliability of your mountain bike more than going tubeless. Even if you don’t want to invest in new tires, you can convert your current tires and rims to tubeless relatively inexpensively. Riding tubeless, you can run lower pressure for more traction, lower rolling resistance and more comfort. Plus your tires will be immune to pinch flats and minor punctures, and plug kits like the excellent but expensive DynaPlug kits, can very quickly fix the bigger leaks.
Find the Right Pressure: If your tires are tubeless, start at around 25 or 30psi (higher pressure if you’re running tubes, have narrower tires or if you are a heavier rider) and give them a ride, slowly decrease the pressure until you start to feel squirm in the corners or bobbing when you putting the power down. Raise this pressure until these problems go away, and that’s the optimal tire pressure for you (Note that if you’re sticking with tubes, you need to have the pressure up a bit higher to avoid pinch flats). For racing, add roughly 2psi over your standard riding pressure since you’ll be pushing your bike harder than normal. This will also give you a little air pressure to spare in case you do get some kind of puncture.
Lighten up: A lighter tire is always going to require less energy to spin-up, and with all the corners, short climbs and descents in our local trails and race courses, you will be accelerating a lot. The same model of tire can be available in different versions with multiple bead types and casing options which can greatly impact weight, rolling resistance and ride quality. It’s hard to find new tires these days that aren’t sufficiently durable, at least for the conditions you will find in the Midwest, so go with the lightest version of your tire of choice. Paying more for a lighter tire is worth the investment. If your current tires have a steel bead (non-folding), then it’s a cheaper tire, and upgrading could make a huge improvement.
Skinny or Wide?: You can run wider tires at a lower pressure, which means less rolling resistance, more traction and more comfort. Skinny tires weigh less. It comes down to how important lower rolling resistance and higher traction are compared to better acceleration for the races and rides you’ll be doing. Personally, I’ll never be running less than a 2.2” tire again (my preference is for 2.4” to 2.6” tires), but if you are a real lightweight maybe you want to run a 2.0” tires. You'll also need to consider the width of your rims, narrow rims around 20mm internal width or narrower will work best with tires that are 2.2" and narrower. If your rims are 20mm wide internally, you probably don't want to run tires narrower than 2.2". The lightest version of a tire in a wide size is the best compromise.
Treat Pattern: A faster rolling tread can allow you to go faster with less energy input, but the trade off is that, generally speaking, faster rolling tires have less traction. Then again, since our local trails are largely hard-packed dirt, some of the faster rolling tires with many short knobs can actually have superior traction and control on hardpack compared to aggressive tires with fewer, bigger knobs. Getting into specifics below, I’ll talk about a few Maxxis and Bontrager tires. Maxxis, because these are regarded one of the best brands doing MTB tires these days, and you can order them from our sponsor Revolution Cycles, and Bontrager due to the ubiquity of Trek products in our area. Even if you don't have these particular tires, you should be able to look at your tread and see how they compare.
Aggressive Tires: You might be looking at Maxxis Minion DHF, or the Bontrager SE4. These tires are awesome for Copper Harbor or heading out west, but they are overkill for our local terrain, and not recommended for racing. The big knobs are confidence inspiring in loose conditions, but they roll slowly, and on hard-pack they can actually have less traction due to fewer biting edges, and corner more poorly since the tall knobs can flex on the packed dirt.
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| Maxxis Minion DHF. Photo courtesy bikerumors.com |
All-Rounder Tires: The Maxxis Ardent (or event Ardent Race) or Bontrager XR2, will roll fairly well and have great traction on our typical trail conditions and will even get you through rocky and sandy sections with confidence. They are not the fastest, but are a safe choice for a noob who will have more confidence and control with the greater traction.
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| Bontrager XR2. Photo courtesy Trekbikes.com |
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| Maxxis Ardent Race. Photo courtesy bikeradar.com |
Versatile Race Tires: The Maxxis Ikon or Bontrager XR1 are made to be raced fast, but also offer enough traction for more technical courses and can be used for trail riding too. A good choice to minimize rolling resistance and weight. This is probably the sort of tire I’d recommend to most people looking for a race-day tire.
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| Bontrager XR1. Photo courtesy Trekbikes.com |
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| Maxxis Ikon. Photo courtesy mtbr.com |
Fast, Race-Only Tires: The Maxxis Pace, Bontrager XR0 and my racing tire of choice the Kenda Saber Pro, don’t have much for center tread, and just a bit of cornering tread. This keeps the weight down and the rolling resistance to an absolute minimum. But you really have to know how to move your body over the bike to get sufficient traction for climbing and downhill breaking, and you need to know how to feel-out the corning limitations of a tire like this, and generally ride as fast as possible within the limits of these tires. Not recommended for noobs.
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| Bontrager XR0. Photo courtesy Trekbikes.com |
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| Maxxis Pace. Photo courtesy singletrackworld.com |
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