out today on Harden moor and St Ives, bike was horrendous , sloppy on road ,terrible in mud and unsafe on cobbles/rocks . I have a nobby nic on front and mountain king on rear not eve or sticky compounds just regular shop ones . Im 50/50 road and off road what should i get , Hard tail and 26″ . Not a troll just want some ideas, i need to get the right tyres .

Anything but anything other than a nobby nic on the front.

Specialized butcher on the front and a purgatory on the back is a good combo.

50:50 road and off-road is a hard compromise to make

maybe a tyre with a dual/triple compound would help but depends how you corner it, and slippy wet cobbles sounds impossible to sort unless you used super soft rubber all over the tyre which would then be draggy as hell.

For mud you want knobs and for road or even rocks you don’t

conti black chilli are pretty grippy I’d say, and they roll OK too but they’re expensive

Im often on Harden moor and St ives, spend a lot of time in Thackley and Esholt and swear by my Hans Dampfs snakeskins all year round. You could try different tyre pressures first if you don’t want to shell out or do what I did and buy various nearly new ones on ebay (selling on unwanted ones) until you find the tyres that are right for you.

I know next to nothing about tyres but I do know I’d never put a Nobby Nic on my bike again.

I ride Harden/St Ives often and for this time of year I use a Minion Supertacky on the front. I find it grips well enough on wet roots and rock and performs reasonably well on the muddy bits. It’s very slooow on tarmac though:-)

On one chunky monkeys are pretty good on the front, soft compound, cheap and knobbly enough when there’s a bit of mud. Fairly good on the road too.

Something with a fancier (mostly just softer) compound would be highest on my list. Another vote for something like a Minion ST up front with something faster on the back. Tyre pressure is a nother place to play around, even if it means stopping and inflating/deflating your tyres for tarmac/trails.

There’s always a compromise with tyres unfortunately, something that copes with tarmac will struggle in the mud and with cobbles in the mix then a mud tyre will be out of it’s depth.

Compound makes a huge difference. I’ve used Conti’s black chilli Rubber Queens in the past and these did the best job of pulling off that rare trick of being grippy offroad and not too tiresome on road. You can buy black chilli rubber at a discount if you shop around too.

If you’re looking elsewhere then it’s sensible to put a softer compound up front where you need the grip and a harder compound at the back to aid rolling resistance.

not eve or sticky compounds just regular shop ones

Sounds like you have the basic hard plastic compounds.

I wouldn’t pay out for new 26in rubber now, stick a WTD advert up and buy some nearly new tyres for peanuts.

In fact I’ve got some suitable ones if you;re interested, email in profile.

Rode the frozen devil this weekend, and it was quite muddy in spots, I still had my summer/thetford bontrager xr2 tyres on. And to be perfectly honest I’m going to keep them on all year round for every trail. Sliding around was happening by everyone on every tyre choice. I personally believe people over think their tyre selection.

and mountain king on rear

mountain king 1? Pretty sure they are universally recognised as being shit, MK2 seem pretty good tho.

Trouble with winter is that anything that works really well in the slop is going to be draggy and/or skittery on the road.

I personally believe people over think they’re tyre selection.

I tend to use the same tyres most of the time but proper mud tyres are worth having.
Minion ST front and something chunky on the rear is my usual, minion STs are rather draggy on the road tho.

What Liftman suggested is a great combo! These tyres roll surprisingly good on tarmac too, I’ve done few pretty long rides on them.