I don’t mean to sound negative or even argumentative. And I realize it’s just my opinion but the way I ride is 95% pavement and maybe 5% manicured grass. And scooter tires just wear down to the cords in a few hundred miles for me. Twice I have had the inner tube become exposed and pop before I could make it home.
I like hard carving and weigh too close to 200 Lbs. And at my age I do not like losing traction or sliding out laterally. Much respect for you guys that view that kind of thing as thrilling!
I’m sure that there are other situations like trail rides etc, that suit rounded tires better than my application.
If you are getting good service and life out of them then the price makes them a no brainer without a doubt.
But what I have found is that when I ride off into the grass with scooter tires they sink in and I immediately feel the increased roll resistance.
Where as with a wider contact surface there is far less drag when transitioning from pavement to grass.
I have abandoned all of my 34mm wide wheels and scooter tires because in 50 miles they wind up looking just like these:
As in this picture, that tire was designed to be leaning side to side on a regular basis. On our four wheel platforms they do not.
Everything has it’s compromises, for the way that I ride I see no advantage to those scooter tires other than their price.
I’m sure that if you put motorcycle tires on a car there would be a helluva lot less roll resistance but I doubt that it would offset the disadvantages.
YMMV
Were you thinking that was on urethane? Is that why you commented on 2x stopping distance?
Oh no, I am completely on board with pneumatics! The only way that I would use a solid tire again is on a smooth race track.
TBH I do not brake very hard. Prolly something else that I need to practice more is emergency stopping.
Correct. But so are prebuilts.
I drool over the DIY’s that guys build here.
But to be honest, I always fantasize about putting real tires on those boards.
There is NO WHERE else on your Masterpieces that “cheap or plentiful” is part of the decision making process.
You also gotta consider that these are wear items. I can’t find alternatives to my rounded tires that aren’t like 2x the price. Looking at you newbee super wide off-road treaded tires
If trucks were wear items like tires I wouldn’t be using a $450 set
Also I tried some wide tires out before, it felt more “sluggish” to turn
In my opinion, the experiences you’re describing are more indicative of issues with the specific tires you used rather than issues with “scooter tires” in general.
Currently I have 5 different types, sizes and brands of tires/hubs that I am switching between.
But in the past I have gone through 6" Hota, 7" Sunmate, 8" CST, QING DA, & Cheng Shin tires. And I found that none of them lasted very well. They all “crowned out” wearing out the centers first. I even tried running low pressures to spread out the wear pattern. But that l caused them to feel unresponsive in my opinion.
Once I went to 12mm axles and 28mm MTB bearings I bought a set of 165mm x 62mm XCELL RS V2 eSkate Tires and a set of 160x70mm Linnpower NEXT racing slicks that I have yet to wear out on the street.
But a couple weeks ago I went to a set of 235mm x 89mm turf tires on 80mm wide MBS RS Pro II XL hubs thanks to @Dinnye and these beasts may just be my new favorite. They are unstoppable and rugged. Great for exploring the unknown at night.
The kool thing about the larger volume tires are the ability to accurately set tire pressure to the exact pound, with out the pressure dropping as you remove the gauge or pump. As was my case with the smaller tires.
I find that these big tires are extremely tunable with pressure changes.
As a side note: How many of you guys that ride regular wear out the right front tire first?
Do the guys that ride goofy wear out the front left first?
Maybe it has more to do with my technique?
The stiffer the sidewall the less true this is in my experience, if you are talking about Qind Da those are sluggish. I really don’t like the sidewall flex of many pneumatics when cornering hard, especially 8x2.
The 9x3.5s I am running have super stiff sidewalls though they feel almost like a huge thane just super grippy.
Of course the sidewall stiffness also causes a huge difference in ride comfort, my 9x3.5s are far from comfortable.
If you are willing to go to the 4" ID there are options they exist. I’ve got some Deli 9x3.5 slicks I am yet to try but feel promising for 8€ (more like 6.5€ without tax) and Carlisle 8x3 slicks that also feel very promising for 14€ including tax (more like 11€ without). That’s dirt cheap. And if you have 50-80mm contact patch per tyre suddenly the tyres just stop wearing out.
The CST 9x3.5 slicks I have been running for a while have 80mm actual contact patch. I had about 250 miles of hard track racing pushing at least close to 1G lateral every session but often over 1G, with my record being 1.4G. And about 250 miles of more casual riding, about half of which was carving fairly hard. I am still on the first set but slicks being slicks without wear indicator I have no idea how much more life they still have in them. Could be 50 miles could be 1000.
I might go to the 8x3 when the good weather ends though because the 9x3.5 is too much tire to heat up in the cold.
Some 8x2s on track don’t even last me half a session, let alone feel more sluggish because of the sidewall and grip much less. These CSTs weren’t as cheap as the ones I just recently bought (they were 32€ per tire including tax, but recently I found them for 20€ including tax), but damn did they save me money and time while offering much greater grip. And I am pretty sure there won’t be a huge difference between the ones I used and just bought.
But I am also not saying that the ultimate tyre for city riding is a slick tire nor am I saying that it is the tire with the stiffest sidewalls. They are the best in good conditions, but if you need to be prepared for bad conditions as well, at least some rain channels are needed, and for a commuting use case on bad roads I would appreciate a less stiff sidewall.
