# Tires for 26" wheel Tandems?



## zouch (Mar 26, 2007)

hi all!

what's your favorite tire for ~80/20 use?

ideally, we're looking for something that runs smooth on the road, but works well for occasional gentle dirt trail use.

SWMBA is happy with the way the Hutchinson Python works for this type of use on her single, and a friend of mine had great luck touring with them on (what they call) roads in Egypt and Sudan. although they are certainly smooth running on the pavement and hardpack, i don't know how well they'd corner on the road and i didn't care for the way they let loose cornering in the dirt on my trail bike. i'm not sure how much of an issue this would be as i don't expect to be cornering the same way on the long bike, but would hate to have an issue with SWMBA on the back!
another possibility we're considering would be the WTB All Terrainasaurus, though my preference from my singles is generally for tires with a Kevlar bead tire.

bike is a '95 semi-custom Ibis Cousin It; team and bike with gear are under 400 lbs.

any suggestions (conversely, any warnings regarding anything we should stay away from!) are welcome!


cheers!


----------



## skopiec (Aug 5, 2009)

Picked up a pair of Forte Greenway's @ performance for around $17 for the pair. So far I'm impressed, they roll almost as well as the Conti Town and Country that they replaced, but are significantly better off road....


----------



## zouch (Mar 26, 2007)

thanks, Skop'; however, i've seen enough issues with Performance and/or their store brands to be too leery of them to trust them for anything as critical as tires on a tandem. i might be more likely to risk it for something less critical and/or something on a single bike (read: where only my own teeth were at risk), but not in this application.
i do pick up a few things there infrequently, but typically only major brand name items, and then usually if they've got some killer closeout deal on them or something. there are just too many other good independent stores around here to need to go to that most vanilla of chain stores.

not getting any other feedback, and not being able to find anything i liked any better with folding beads, i compromised my wish-list a little and settled on a set of wire bead 26x1.75 Michelin Country Rocks. (if you knew my musical tastes, you'd understand why that name makes my skin crawl,...  but they seem to be good enough compromise tires.)









put a couple of hours on them this afternoon with the wife, and they seem to have just the ride we were looking for. even though Wifey's a little sore from not having the right saddle yet, she's excited about doing more, so mission accomplished!

cheers!


----------



## ekloco (Apr 20, 2007)

I have an Ellsworth Tandem. We have Secialized "Resolution" as our knobby tires.
They are not overly severe but good for the Ruff Stuff

What would probably suit your purpose perfectly is a WTB "MutanoRaptor" 2.4 for the front and a 2.1 semi slick for the back. we use aBontrager " Revolution" but any semi slick will do. The combination will give you tires that roll fast and still have pretty good corning traction up front.


----------



## TandemNut (Mar 12, 2004)

WTB"s MutanoRaptor is a great hardpack and dirt road tire, but very scary if you lean/push it in turns on pavement. The center ridge of tread is great on hard surfaces, but there's no corresponding ridge to the sides when leaned over.
We use them quite often here, but that's more 80/20 Off-road oriented.
On paved rail-trails and such, I have used WTB Wierwolf LT with good success. not much use in mud, but otherwise a pretty good all-around tire. Large volume casing lets you run somewhat lower volume off road for additional traction; not sure how your frame clearance is.
Like the All Terrainasaurus as well.
Can you tell we use WTB as our OE tire supplier? Lots of choices and very good consistent performance.


----------



## ds2199 (Sep 16, 2008)

*tires, tires tires...*

I did a LOT of searching for the perfect tire for our mtb tandem this year. We have a Ventana ECDM. I began with the Mutano Raptors, great rolling tire, thin sidewalls. For the trails that we ride, thin sidewalls just don't work.

Next we went to Specialized Eskar 2Bliss (ran them with tubes). Liked this tire a lot. Stronger sidewalls and a decent center bead that rolls well on hardpack but also corners well. I would buy this tire again, although I think the rear tire wore fairly quickly.

Next we went with the Kenda Nevagal. This tire rocks! A bit heavy and not as good rolling resistance (so good on the trails, but not as good on the roads). This was our everyday tire until we started searching for a lower rolling ressitance tire.

Then I started searching for a low rolling resistance tire as we were training for the Leadville 100 and wanted somthing that would roll fast on the non-technical portions of the race but it still needed some decent treat pattern. With that in mind, we tried the Hutchison Pythons. HATED this tire on the tandem, I felt uncomfortable cornering on these tires. I think they would be fine if you spent most of your time on dirt roads, but trails not-so-much. It felt like the profile of the tire was more squared off than rounded...

Then I went with the Maxxis CrossMark. For what I was looking for, this turned out to be the Holy Grail. It has an almost continuous center bead (with the crosses on it - hence the name "crossmark") but still has great tread and a rounded profile.

So what does all this mean? There are a lot of tires out there that work for different purposes... It is a personal preference and the reason I say this is b/c one of the other tandem teams at Leadville said they LOVE the Hutchison Python tire - go figure...

Just my .02 cents
Dan


----------



## PMK (Oct 12, 2004)

I agree that Pythons don't work for us either.

Knowing what has worked for us on single bikes, and this is 100% off road based with lots of soft terrain, I carried over to our first tandem.

A Smoke Kevlar on the front, and a Ritchey WCS Zmax on the rear flipped opposite the direction arrow.

As we wear tires out, I have tried a few others, but still find the Smoke front to work best for us. On the back I just toss on anything laying around... they get trashed pretty quick...normally a single bike take off works acceptable, but I also take tires that don't work on the singles and use em up.

PK


----------



## tsetsaf (Oct 20, 2009)

Coming from Southern California terrain we run Panaracer Fires Front and Rear for mountain rides.

On pavement we recently purchased these: www.tandembicycling.com from WTB and they are really working well. Given the aggressive nature of our El Testigo we like to run tires that can take a bit of dirt too .


----------



## Fleas (Jan 19, 2006)

For road and light trail we are running some old Specialized Rockster 1.9's. They have a nice center ridge and will grab in all but slimy mud. At that point, we go prepared with a 2.35 Nevegal up front and a 2.1 High Roller out back (that's all that'll fit on the old C'dale).

Some other rail trail tandems I know use some tires that also have a less aggressive tread with a nice centerline. I've tried them for cornering and they work just fine. My wife doesn't get too nervous about stressing the front tire so we've leaned on it pretty hard and they are fine even when wet. I thought they were Kendas but I can't find them in their catalog - they look like the NPJ dirt jump tire.

-F


----------



## Trails4Two (May 12, 2008)

*other options*

We ended up just buying a road tandem and running a bit bigger tire it. That way we don't compromise our off-road fun.


----------



## SteveF (Mar 5, 2004)

Been pretty pleased with 1.75" Panaracer Pasela TG's on our CoMotion. Mostly road use with occasional mild singletrack and dirt road/rail trails...I run them in various sizes on some of my singles, too.


----------

