Jan 30, 2010
How Much Faster Will My Mountain Bike Go With Street Tires? How Does This Compare To A Road Bike?
I currently have a mountain bike, and obviously have knobby tires on it that i ride on the trails with. Can you tell me how much faster my bike will go with tires that are more like road tires, and how that speed relates to how fast people go on road bikes.
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I got two sets of wheels for my mountain bike.. A set with 2.5″ x 26″ Armadillo knobby tires for unpaved-trail use, and another set with 1.5″ x 26″ Armadillo slicks for street use.
I swap them in and out as the situation demands, but I did experiment with both sets on the street.. According to my cyclocomputer, with the fat 2.5″ knobbies, pedaling on the #3 chainring and the #7 cassette gear on flat pavement, my speed tops out at around 14mph. With the 1.5″ slicks in the same situation, I was getting 17mph tops.
I’d say you should be able to see a 2-3mph improvement, give or take 1 or 2 mph depending on other factors like your weight and the bike’s weight, whether or not the bike has suspension, etc.
Hope this helps some.
I hope you’re asking how much faster you’ll go on the _street_ with slick tires. On the road, You can easily realize a %20 improvement in efficiency using a good high pressure slick versus off-road tires. In other words, for the same effort, you’ll go 20 mph on the MTB tires and 24 mph on the slicks – with the suspension locked out.
Raod racing tires are much higher pressure and more narrow than MTB slicks, resulting in even lower rolling resistance. Couple that with the different geometry (more aerodynamic) of the road bike and the same effort between the two will easily result in another %10 efficiency.
You will notice much difference if you put slick tires on a mountain bike because you still have the same grears. I know on my mtn bike on the road I average about 12 miles per hour. On my road bike I can average 15-17 mph depending on wind. Hope this helps.
When I cruise on the roads on my 9kg XC HT MTB with 2.1 knobbies, I avg 28-30km/h.
When I changed to 1inch slicks, I avg 30 – 33km/h.
When I am on a 7kg road bike with 23mm tires, I avg 33 – 38km/h
if your mountain biking on it dont use flats but if your going through a street fase, get maxxis high rollors is a perfect one and only get ones in the back beucase front ones dont matter. if your doing street it makes it easier to turn and grip against the floor.