# 120 TPI Tires: OK For Heavy Riders? Bad Handling?



## TomBrooklyn (Jul 18, 2008)

Are lightweight 120 thread per inch (tpi) tires bad news for heavy riders? How about the midweight 60 tpi?

Me: 270 lbs. Gear: 10 - 30lbs
Use: Mountain trails, wooded off-trail, heavy gravel

Are the 120tpi and 60 tpi durable enough? I want to be able to ride anywhere with little worry about the tires giving out, flatting easily, or catastrophic sidewall damage, particularly on rough or rocky downhill trails.

I'm not too concerned about shaving a few pound off the bike, but maybe I don't know what I'd be missing. _Is there a big performance advantage to 60 or 120 tpi? _

I'm shopping for a fat bike now, and was hoping to get 27 tpi tires, but some bikes I've been looking at come with 120 tpi tires.


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## TooTallUK (Jul 5, 2005)

A 300lb load is going to need some burly tires. If you want to ride rocky trails you want tires that can cope with everything. If you want performance, shed a little lumber, don't look to tires.


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## mikesee (Aug 25, 2003)

Depends. Not all tires are created equally, even with the same TPI.


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## twodownzero (Dec 27, 2017)

Thread count has nothing to do with weight carrying capacity. Put another PSI or two of air in the tire and rock on.

The primary thing weight does to a tire is flex it, which air will serve to mitigate. And no tire will ever get hot/fall apart from this flex on a bicycle unless the tire pressure is way too low, which it could be regardless of the weight of the rider.


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## TomBrooklyn (Jul 18, 2008)

TooTallUK said:


> A 300lb load is going to need some burly tires. If you want to ride rocky trails you want tires that can cope with everything. If you want performance, shed a little lumber, don't look to tires.


I figured I will need burly tires. I will be riding rooty and rocky trails and off-trail. I like performance, but I like durability and reliability a lot more.

Using a (road) bike in a city of 8 million people as my only personal means of transportation for five years, I only passed someone (a little old lady) going uphill once, so I am one of the slowest bike riders in the world anyway (although if I had some lower gears I would have done better.) I figured dropping about 90 lbs off my frame would do a lot more for performance than dropping 5 or 6 pounds off the bike, which is another reason I don't care how much the strongest tires (and tubes and rims) weigh.



mikesee said:


> Depends. Not all tires are created equally, even with the same TPI.


 Which are the strongest tires I ought to be favoring in my search for a bike then? I'm going to guess to stay with the popular name brands.

I see Kenda has entered the fat bike tire market; but I'm wary of them because I used to flat the inexpensive Kenda road bike tires about once a week on the glass and hardware strewn streets of NYC. I'm not sure any mid-grade tire would have done better though. I solved that problem with Kevlar Gatorskins and Armadillos which I was more than happy to pay triple the price for.

I don't know if there are any particular standouts in fat bike tires, or huge differences in tire technology like those kevlar road tires; but if there is, that's the kind of tire I want, regardless of cost.



twodownzero said:


> Thread count has nothing to do with weight carrying capacity. Put another PSI or two of air in the tire and rock on.


 It's not so much the weight carrying capacity I was concerned about. I figured if road bike tires could support me, fat bike tires should have no problem. It was how the tpi affects sidewall durability I was mostly wondering about, especially since I figured the tires might be scraping some things in a mountain environment. I love puncture resistance too.



twodownzero said:


> The primary thing weight does to a tire is flex it, which air will serve to mitigate.


 I figured on keeping my tires well aired. I cringe when I read the frequent advisements to lower air pressure for more traction.


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## mikesee (Aug 25, 2003)

TomBrooklyn said:


> Which are the strongest tires I ought to be favoring in my search for a bike then? I'm going to guess to stay with the popular name brands.


You need to give more information. Which size are you after? 26" rims? 3.8, 4.0, 4.2, 4.5, or 4.8" tires?

What sort of tread do you need? Big, aggressive blocks? Or small, fast rolling blocks? Studs?

How much pressure will you run? How wide will your rims be? Tubeless important? Mandatory?


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