I’m looking for some reccomendations, for decent tyres for my daughters Trek MT 220. Most tyres in this size are nasty heavy wire beaded things in plasticky compounds. She isn’t going to ride on anything other than pavement or gravel paths so I was thinking something fast rolling.Schwalbe table tops look like they might fit the bill.
Any others I should consider?

Kenda small block 8. are very good for this sort of thing. They come as standard on Islabikes. Roll well on the road but my son gets on fine with them on Gisburn Red route on his Bein24.

my boy has schwalbe rocket rons on his 24inch bike

Conti Explorers sit on my lad’s bike and are as cheap as chips.

Good suggestions.Thanks all.

Schwalbe Land Crusiers are cheap and arent a bad choice for mixed riding. Wire bead though.

Not necessarily bothered by the wire bead but some kids tyres seem uneccessarily heavy and I reckon it’s the easiest way of removing some excess weight.

I just bought some Schwalbe Mow Joe’s for my kids 20″ bike. Lightest 20×2.0″ knobbly tire I could find.
Available in 24″ guise at 420g. Only 1.85 widths but probably good for the use as above.
Have Black Jacks on his 16″ bike, and these were cheap froma uk online seller. Fairly narrow at 1.9, but the only real 16″ knobby I could find.
24’s are 560g/1.9, 670g/2.1
I bough the 20’s from Schwalbe’s website direct
I found the 16’s pretty cheap on a few UK sites and at around 12 quid a pop it was well worth a shot.

That small Block 8 is a great tyre too.

Rocket Ron out front, Mow Joe out back on my son’s Isla Bike Beinn 24

Some 24 tires were too large for his frame at the rear (Rocket Ron’s etc…)

Nice, light and speedy

What’s a good place to buy the Schealbes or Small block 8s?
Not finding any places online with stock of 24s.

EBay, the last time I bought some.

Schwalbe Black Jack 24″ x 2.1″ @ £11.49 each FTW!

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/mobile/schwalbe-black-jack-mtb-tyre-puncture-protect/rp-prod80072

Got my kid’s RR’s from here:
http://www.starbike.com/en/schwalbe-rocket-ron/#

+1 Small Block 8’s

maybe worth casking Islabikes to supply – I found them cheaper for a replacement SRAM rear mech for one of the kids bikes than anywhere else.

Of the same ilk as Small Block 8’s (which are brilliant!), theres also DMR Motos in 24″ flavour

+1 for Small Block 8s. Just the job – i got mine from eBay IIRC

For my sons full suss bike I went with SB8 on the back, and a Schwalbe Big Betty 24 on the front – not easy to get the Big Betty, I had to order from Schwalbe direct.

On a hard tail I’d probably just go with SB8s.

24 x 1.85 Mow Joes here – folding ones. On the numbers I’d have liked something fatter for him, but real world sizing is pretty good. Definitely a nice compromise between grip and weight. Really impressed with them but they may possibly be a bit on the knobbly side for “tarmac and gravel” though. SB8s may be a better compromise. Good for this stuff though…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/mAABDi]Saul – race 2 final lap[/url] by Jonathan Bateman, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nfNgX9]New bike liftoff[/url] by Jonathan Bateman, on Flickr

🙂

Jonathan – are those 24″ Pace forks? Who do you have to kill for that kind of thing?

You have to be very good friends with an ex-Pace engineer… should be a bit of web feature on that little job coming soon 🙂

Jonathan, awesome bike project.. but 165mm cranks for an 8yo?
I’m guessing he’s not quite 5ft 6 yet!

Yep – cranks were a compromise. I had some others to cut down and redrill but I was running out of favours. They’re only a smidge longer than on his road/cross bike… and they were very cheap for cranks, Bb and rings 😉

X0 carbon downhill cranks are where it’s at for 8 year olds.

Jonathan, thats possibly the nicest kid’s bike ever.Tell us more!

Patience! I’m writing a little piece for the ST website on it at the moment 🙂

dirksdiggler – Member

Jonathan, awesome bike project.. but 165mm cranks for an 8yo?
I’m guessing he’s not quite 5ft 6 yet!

my boy (9) has 150mm cranks, the 165mm that came with the bike were too long for his hight

Be careful where you make your compromises.
With cranks too long you’re potentially messing with his muscles and knee joints and he’s not actually gaining any advantage.. Only weakening his knees.

Whilst not necessarily pimp, you can pick up Sinz bmx cranks in any length from 120mm – 175mm. You might find that at 10% height for crank length he should actually be closer to a 130mm crank.

There plenty of bike information available that references knee problems with long cranks, and that longer length doesn’t always equate to more leverage/power transfer.

I’d suggest his road/cross cranks are too long also.

Careful.. you’re nurturing a talent.. don’t break him just yet 😉

Don’t think I haven’t gone through all the possible permutations… I didn’t perceive any advantage to the longer cranks other than actually be able to lay my hands on them! All the BMX cranks (I’ve found) are 110mm BCD and single ring, which wasn’t really going to produce any sensible gearing for proper off road stuff (stuck with existing 9spd kit). I was chasing some nice shorter cranks on ebay but they went for silly money. If I had all the choices I’d have bought another complete Islabike, but (surprisingly perhaps) that bike was built on a very tight budget (and some massive favours). Those RF cranks were under 70 quid for cranks, rings, bash and BB.

I’ve still got the option of shortening a set of sq tapers I’ve got if I need to. Q factor on those RF ones isn’t great either (being DH cranks). The annoying thing is all the HTII cranks I’ve got knocking about which can’t be shortened! As with most of my bikes – it’s in development 😉

problem with the sinz cranks is chainring size. I considered them for Lewis’s bike but the smallest ring you can get for a 110 BCD is 33t

I used cranks from Spawn cycles with a 64mm BCD they worked out cheaper from Canada than I could get Sinz in the UK. Anyway Sinz would have been too long as I went for 89mm, seeing as my build was for a three year old (actually he was still 2 then!) 😀

But back to tyres, I just got Rocket Rons for my 7 year old’s 24″ and was impressed how light they are, and he is impressed with the grip.

I couldn’t find those when I was looking – where did you get them from?

I couldn’t find those when I was looking – where did you get them from?

Do you mean the Spawn cranks? Directly from Spawn in Canada but they are out of stock now.

Intense Micro nobbly II

Good tyre, low rolling resistance..

Do you mean the Spawn cranks?

No, the Rocket Rons 😉

http://www.starbike.com/en/schwalbe-rocket-ron/

or on ebay

I got my rocket rons on ebay. They were used but as good as new and got them very cheap. (This is when someone comes along and says some mug bought their worn out rocket rons for a fortune on ebay…)