Fat STREET Tires are WAY BETTER for Riding on Pavement than KNOBBY Off-Road Tires

[mail_e36]

Friends,

On my 85-pound mid-drive ebike, the original CST BFT Fat Tires wore out in 1,000 miles of pavement/street riding, plus they were extremely loud (sounded like a swarm of bees when riding on roads).

Replaced with STREET tires, and they were way quieter, much more agile (easier to lean into corners without loosing stability), AND lasted TWICE AS LONG as of the offroad knobby tires.

The street tires lasted 2,000 miles without a single issue, albeit the front did wear MUCH more than the rear, not sure why?

Pictures are of the used tires which I just replaced with identical one tires.

Just an FYI if your original 4x26 Fat Tires are wearing out, consider replacing them with STREET tires if you don't do much off-roading.

What are your thoughts on STREET VERSUS KNOBBY TIRES, friends?

 

[indianajo]

Fat tires are for fluffy beach sand, or powder snow. Any other application, IMHO, is wrong. They are fashionable now, but stupid in other terrain.
I ride knobbies on street, because they have 1/10 the flats of street tires. No liners, slime, tubeless, etc etc required. Just change them when knobs get shorter than 3/32". And they are cheap. ~$26. My tires run at 50-60 psi. I ride unpowered 80% of the distance, 100% in months where it might freeze.
I watched a PBS show last month about a 70 something guy that had recovered from heart trouble, to ride his bike from St. Louis to Chicago over 3 days. The show was about one flat after another, on those 32 mm 120 psi road tires. The guy believed what the sales people at the bike shop told him. I have a lot more fun when I ride. I don't need a support vehicle, I get where I am going 99% of the time without help. My last big problem was broken seat support.

 

[harryS]

Sure,all of the above is true. If you ride a fat tire bike on pavement, use street tires. I put 26 x 3" Veeco Speedsters on my fat tire bike in 2016. Then I had Veeco Snowshoes for the winter.

My tastes changed though, Haven't ridden the fat tor bike much ar all.

 

[Coco Bob]

The first fatty I bought was a low end basic bike. I installed a Bafang mid-drive and upgraded the brakes. Then replaced the knobs with foldable street tires and light weight tubes. I think the bike lost 5 pounds per tire. Rode much better and quieter. Thinking of doing the same thing on my new fatty. Maybe I’ll just swap them out and see how much I like them again.

 

[DDBB]

Depends where you ride I guess. I've never had a flat with street tires. Knock on wood.

 

[mrgold35]

Noticed the same issue with my Kenda Juggernaut 26X4 on my rear hub 2016 Radrover. Went from weekend dirt riding only to adding 5 day a week work ebike commuting a year later. The knobby felt a bit squirrely at high speeds on pavement, very loud "killer bees" sound on pavement, rears wore down in about 1000 miles, and prone to flats because the tires were pretty thin between the knobbies. Adding Mr. Tuffy tire liners, Stan's tire sealant helped with flats, and I rotated the tires to even out the wear. Just wasn't a lot of 26X4 street tires available back then.

Swapped out to Vee8 120tpi 26X4 (no longer available). Huge difference and perfect upgrade for my riding style. It was closer to an "all season" tire with the capability to split the difference nicely between light off road and high speed paved road duties. Noticed road noise went way down, increased stability at high speeds, improved emergency braking, less flats because of thicker tire, increase in battery range, and the big plus was more than 2X tread life. They discontinued this tire a few years later. I was able to purchase extra tires on eBay and still have them on my Radrover today.

 

[Catalyzt]

Interesting. I don't know if there is a bright-line answer to this question, but...

I ride 80% broken, cracked and crumbling pavement and 20% dirt; the thing is, when I want to ride dirt, I really want to ride dirt.

I'm running 2.2 Maxxis Ikons at 50 PSI (they are 60 PSI max, so that should be safe) just because I don't know of a better solution. My bike is low-weight and pretty underpowered, 46 lbs and 40nm Shimano E5000. So far, no complaints other than they do have slow leaks, and I have to top them up about every 10 days. So my needs are different; I kind of have to run high pressure because my motor has so little power and the hills are so steep.

They're only a little noisy; I keep thinking it's not a good idea to corner too hard with them, but I've gradually learned that I can. The Ikons hold the road better than the 2.3 eMTB tires I have on my 29er-- the 2.3s break away more on bad surfaces, though they are reasonably forgiving. When I'm riding the bike with the 2.2 Ikons, I do lean it way the hell over, taking pretty tight turns at 21 MPH and exiting the turns at 23 with no problem. My max downhill speed was 43 MPH, with 38 being more typical, but it feels like a motorcycle, very solid.

I think I have about 1,000 miles on these tires, but I'm not sure. I know I'm probably wearing them down faster on pavement, but I don't worry about it. I'm mostly a fitness rider, so my rides tend to be short, steep, and physically demanding, at least for a 67 year old, so I've been on the Ikons about two years. They're probably in the last 20% of their service life, but never feel unstable to me.

I do notice that my buddy on his Serial 1, with much fatter tires, does have better traction in patches of Sierra sand or very loose dirt that we often encounter on crumbling pavement, but that's what I'd expect. He has a lot more power than I do.

 

[Chazmo]

Friends,

On my 85-pound mid-drive ebike, the original CST BFT Fat Tires wore out in 1,000 miles of pavement/street riding, plus they were extremely loud (sounded like a swarm of bees when riding on roads).

Replaced with STREET tires, and they were way quieter, much more agile (easier to lean into corners without loosing stability), AND lasted TWICE AS LONG as of the offroad knobby tires.

The street tires lasted 2,000 miles without a single issue, albeit the front did wear MUCH more than the rear, not sure why?

Pictures are of the used tires which I just replaced with identical one tires.

Just an FYI if your original 4x26 Fat Tires are wearing out, consider replacing them with STREET tires if you don't do much off-roading.

What are your thoughts on STREET VERSUS KNOBBY TIRES, friends?

Interesting, mail_e36… My Juiced RipCurrent S came with CST 26x4, but I think they must not have been the same model/composition as yours. I certainly wouldn’t call these street tires, though. And, they’re good on the road! I’m not sure what they are, but I run them at ~35psi or so. Did you run yours at low pressure? Maybe that’s a factor in how they wear.

Out of the over 2000 miles on these tires over the past year+, maybe a little more than half has been road and most of the rest has been gravel trails (rail trail) and a small percentage of earthy single-track. Through the winter there was a lot of sandy, slushy, salty crap on the roads that I rode through as well. Anyway, I barely notice any wear on these CSTs, and like I said they’re not bad road tires either. I’m often well over 30MPH on the road, and I’ve been slightly over 40 (that’s my fastest).

 

[DDBB]

I switched out the Kenda knobbies that came on my Rize RX with bafang ultra motor. I installed schwalbe super moto x tires. The super moto x tires are a hybrid made for street and some dirt but IMO, they are strictly a street tire. The difference in ride quality and rolling resistance was incredible. No more angry bee noise and they coast forever. Others claim the tires are good for 5,000mi. whereas the rear kenda was about worn out after just 1,000mi. I'm so happy with these tires and how they transformed the bike I can't say enough good things about them. If you're riding knobbies on the street and pretty much ride street all the time, you're really missing out if you don't go with road tires