Genuinely curious tire ?

[Waynemarlow]

What tires do you use? Where do you ride?

Chiltern Hills where I ride are a set of hills in the County of Buckinghamshire, England, nothing to special other than probably in excess of 300 miles of different single track trails, all from my back door. All easily accessible by all from the wonderful English Bridleways and Footpaths network all interweaving from small local town to local town over the 600ft of elevation up from the River Thames. Pretty much all in forest and many local trails being laid down over centuries by walkers and horse riders which can be found simply by “exploring”

They range from flat footpaths to steep enough you can barely walk up, ranging from flint, to sand to chalk to stone, each and every path is almost unique in its makeup, each path can go from easy to really steep up man made steps to down slippery muddy chalk chutes with old bomb craters with vertical walls to natural earth depressions / fissures.

So it’s all trail riding. I can’t be bothered with the downhill mantra of repeating the same old run over and over again to get the 1/10 sec off my time and fly the largest jump, I go and ride for 2-3 hours doing 35 -45 miles with about 3000ft - 4000ft of climb. Have I ridden the UK bike parks, yup but I get bored really easy on them as much as I do think they are entertaining. Would I ride the blacks at BPW’s nah not interested, too old to bounce and more interested as I’m self employed, making it to Monday. Anyway I can ride down as steep on my local trails, we just don’t have the granite drop offs which suits me fine and as a young nipper doing MX and in my 40’s UK Enduro events, know just too much about broken bones.

So tyres, what do I use ? They have to be good allrounders, have to be light as we have stiles and gates to lift bikes over, have to last, as I do about 2K miles a year ( since 1989 ) and be good in the winter mud and gloop as much as fast and free rolling for the summer. Pretty wide brief and over the years I’ve always gravitated back to Schwalbe Nobby Nic’s in their various guises. Run them pretty low at about 18F / 20R in the winter 22 / 24 in the summer where the trails can be littered with flint stones about fist sized. They take a beating, not every bodies cup of tea, probably not the best gripping tyre, but as economical all rounders pretty darn good.

So do I spend time getting a good all round suspension setup working well, yup, do I dick about changing tyre pressures, nah I’ve got good base figures that just get altered depending on conditions. Do I consider myself a fantastic rider, nah just some old slightly over weight guy who loves off road biking of all forms. Do I bore stupid my mates telling them how good I am, nah leave that to others. Do I pass on info, only if asked, do I like beer and bars, you bet.

 

[irie]

Chiltern Hills where I ride are a set of hills in the County of Buckinghamshire, England, nothing to special other than probably in excess of 300 miles of different single track trails, all from my back door.

Same here with the South Downs from our back door.

Seems that I'll have to buy a video camera to provide evidence to @KnollyBro a fellow Canuck (yeah, I'm Canadian) that this is really so.

Parochialism personified.

 

[KnollyBro]

Chiltern Hills where I ride are a set of hills in the County of Buckinghamshire, England, nothing to special other than probably in excess of 300 miles of different single track trails, all from my back door. All easily accessible by all from the wonderful English Bridleways and Footpaths network all interweaving from small local town to local town over the 600ft of elevation up from the River Thames. Pretty much all in forest and many local trails being laid down over centuries by walkers and horse riders which can be found simply by “exploring”

They range from flat footpaths to steep enough you can barely walk up, ranging from flint, to sand to chalk to stone, each and every path is almost unique in its makeup, each path can go from easy to really steep up man made steps to down slippery muddy chalk chutes with old bomb craters with vertical walls to natural earth depressions / fissures.

So it’s all trail riding. I can’t be bothered with the downhill mantra of repeating the same old run over and over again to get the 1/10 sec off my time and fly the largest jump, I go and ride for 2-3 hours doing 35 -45 miles with about 3000ft - 4000ft of climb. Have I ridden the UK bike parks, yup but I get bored really easy on them as much as I do think they are entertaining. Would I ride the blacks at BPW’s nah not interested, too old to bounce and more interested as I’m self employed, making it to Monday. Anyway I can ride down as steep on my local trails, we just don’t have the granite drop offs which suits me fine and as a young nipper doing MX and in my 40’s UK Enduro events, know just too much about broken bones.

So tyres, what do I use ? They have to be good allrounders, have to be light as we have stiles and gates to lift bikes over, have to last, as I do about 2K miles a year ( since 1989 ) and be good in the winter mud and gloop as much as fast and free rolling for the summer. Pretty wide brief and over the years I’ve always gravitated back to Schwalbe Nobby Nic’s in their various guises. Run them pretty low at about 18F / 20R in the winter 22 / 24 in the summer where the trails can be littered with flint stones about fist sized. They take a beating, not every bodies cup of tea, probably not the best gripping tyre, but as economical all rounders pretty darn good.

So do I spend time getting a good all round suspension setup working well, yup, do I dick about changing tyre pressures, nah I’ve got good base figures that just get altered depending on conditions. Do I consider myself a fantastic rider, nah just some old slightly over weight guy who loves off road biking of all forms. Do I bore stupid my mates telling them how good I am, nah leave that to others. Do I pass on info, only if asked, do I like beer and bars, you bet.

Hi Wayne. So nice to finally be introduced to you! I am guessing that you would have to live in the UK to know that Bucks refers to Buckinghamshire. Altho this Forum reaches around the world, it appears to be focused on riders in the UK. For instance, here in BC, we don't have Bridleways to access our trails as they are mostly off of mountains that were logged in the late 1800s leaving behind a network of FSRs (Forestry Service Roads) where countless sanctioned and unsanctioned trails are built. Whistler Bike Park is just over 20 years old and the other bike parks in BC are around 10 or less years old so they are all pretty new. I personally prefer bike parks as I have several injuries that make pedaling up difficult but we have so many great places to ride around here that emtbs have opened up so much more terrain for me. We probably spend less than 10% of our time at bike parks as my wife hates them (line ups, over eager Whistler a$$holes who think they own the mountain and the lack of trail maintenance). The majority of our time is spend on the North Shore, Squamish or other local mountains. Most of the people who go to Whistler ride the jump trails. I prefer the tech trails.
I make videos of some of my rides to see where I can improve and how changes I have made to my bike setup affects my riding.

 

[KnollyBro]

Same here with the South Downs from our back door.

Seems that I'll have to buy a video camera to provide evidence to @KnollyBro a fellow Canuck (yeah, I'm Canadian) that this is really so.

Parochialism personified.

I look forward to watching your videos! Your signature requires some further explanation.