SkipRatt mountain bike blog

The market for mountain bike tyres is huge and finding the one for you is very difficult. When starting out in mountain biking, it's important to ask yourself some questions.

1) What sort of riding you intend on doing?

2) Whats the area you ride in like?

As riding to me is just a hobby and something I just like to do, the answer to these questions is very simple.

I've already said in previous posts that I live in a farmland area and that it's relatively flat. Most of the trails are joined together by country roads and most of the area can be covered in thorns from farmers cutting back hedgerow.
As I do not ride XC or trail at a professional level and like to ride some man made trails, I need 2 sets of good all round tyres with very different properties.

I can honestly say that I have been through some really bad choices in my hunt for good all round tyres and wasted lots of money in the process. But at present I have almost completed my mission and found 1 of the 2 in the form of schwalbe. I have had the most luck with schwalbe so my hunt will continue with this brand! For my needs they need to be puncture proof. But also they need to have low rolling resistance, good grip in the wet, corner like it's on rails and ware well for the high prices I pay for Schwalbe.

I have schwalbe Jimmy on my full susser as I got these at a good price online and they perform quite well. But because they ware badly, I do not recommend them. On my hard tail that I use during the crap weather and when the roads are littered with thorns, I use schwalbe marathon plus ATB. These babies are puncture proof and roll very fast on the road, due to it's smart guard and uncut center tread. Although these suit my needs I have just seen another option that takes my fancy.
Schwalbe Hurricane
Take a ride on the wild side! The Hurricane rolls fast and quietly and even offers enough traction for occasional off-road use. RaceGuard protects it optimally against penetration punctures.

And for my full susser, well like I said I've got the Jimmy's but they aren't really up to what I want from a tyre and I have been looking into the 'Racing Ralph'...but honestly I don't really know which way to go with it so if anyone has any experiences with these or any other tyres I would be very pleased to hear about it!!!