I just recently threw these Johnny watts 365 tires on my ebike. I got them to replace my stock worn schwalbe smart sam tires, and liked that this new design looked a bit more aggressive than the standard johnny watts. The winter compound also seemed like a plus for me, since I’m in the Denver area commuting this winter on hardpack gravel and snow (80% of time commuting) and also the softer compound would likely perform better on singletrack when I went (20% of time hitting singletrack/jump park). I run both tires in 27.5x2.6, so near direct comparison here. Only difference being tubes: I had schwalbe light tubes in my stock tire, I’m running lightweight tubolitos in my new JW 365 tire… they’re honestly pretty close in overall weight.
I’ve put about 40 miles commuting on these tires so far , and a couple hours in at my local single track last weekend. General thoughts are that this is a smooth roller, much lower rolling resistance than the smart Sam. The smart Sam (SS) was pretty good rolling resistance in straight line, but was very knobby outside of that center knob tread, and it is noticeably much louder than this tire. This JW 365 tire is quiet! Definitely not commuter slick quiet, but I was shocked by the lack of noise in the JW 365 vs my smart Sam’s. Id say the ride quality is a bit softer than my SS’s at the same tire pressure (20psi f/r), I may need to play with the pressures a bit still to get them right on this new tire. The only con I can give this tire right now (honestly should be expected) is that it’s not quite as good bite on the trails in the singletrack realm… it kind of reminds me of a bmx jump tire, with smooth rolling and speed in mind, it just doesn’t corner/stop quite as agressively in the flowy tech trail sections.
Overall still a great tire if you’re looking for a quiet, smooth roller that you can still go out and have some fun on the weekends with! I need to get some more time in tuning pressures with this tire, but I really like it so far! I’ll give an update once I see some snow use, it’s just been very dry here since I got these this December.
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