Wheeled out the commuter bike on Thursday to check tyres for bits of glass , flint etc and noticed that the conti city contacts (26inch) were badly splitting on the sidewalls and in the water disperal grooves. So popped to LBS , but no 26inch conti slicks in stock. But will order some in for Monday.

All fine and dandy. Just need some new tyrs for the weekend. Then I had a brainwave ( for me) nick the 700c wheels of the cross bike. Same sized discs, same shimano hubs so no arseing around with the rear mech or re shimming the old hope calipers.

The 700c wheels have 32 mm conti twisters on. Runnning them into work and wasn’t extactly flying in, about 2 mins down on the normal commute time of 1hour 15m. Can live with that, knobbly tires being more ‘draggy’. So do I go back to 26in slicks or buy some700c conti slicks instead? Sorry it’s such a **** thread, but in work for 2 hours already and bored out my box..

what size wheels do they use for hour record attempts or world tt rides.
700c so i would say that 700c are faster…

water disperal grooves

they are sipes or siping. utterly pointless on a road tyre as you need to be doing 80mph to aquaplane such a narrow tyre. they are put there to make you feel safer in the wet or when choosing them in the shop but have no affect on grip.

700c slicks will be faster.

Go for the 700c option.

700c.

700c is the UCI “standard” it bears no relation to which is quicker

hour records have to be on a Merckx standard bike (except for the polish bloke who has since been busted for doping)

i’ve got some 26 * 1″ slicks on my MTB. I only really notice a difference above around 25mph, which is faster than i can cycle to work anyway. Downhill on the road, they definitely hold their speed for longer and don’t seem to upset by the road surface.
But around around 18-19mph i can’t notice any difference.

The 19″ inch wheel on my SRX are much faster…

as per HoratioHufnagel’s entry..

When I did have a road bike about 7 years ago, I couldn’t notice that much of a difference in commute times. My average speed would be around the 16 – 17 mph mark.

Hey Mick,

I have some unused 700c slicks in the loft if you want to give them a go rather than buying a set straight off?
Let me know.

Switched from 26″ Nimbus, to 700c Conti Gator Pro and knocked 10min of my old commute…

I like the speed, and silence

nice. ‘****’ isn’t in the swear filter. good word.