A contribution:

5 weeks of riding in the Alps over 2 years;

Bog standard, single ply, non-tubeless tyres used throughout;

Variety of rocky rooty singletrack and fast rocky fire road; and

Not a single puncture.

If you were wondering whether to buy some dual ply tyres specially for the Alps, or some other such silliness, there’s your answer…

On the other hand, on my trip to spain the only people to get punctures were either using XC tyres or XC tubes, my DP’s were fine with normal tubes.

A week blasting around the hills above Chamonix, pair of Panracer Cinders – no punctures.

However, came across a guy who ripped the sidewall on a chunky DH tyre and had a long walk back down into the valley.

Taking Cinders to Les Arcs in a few weeks 🙂

(Hoping my luck holds out)

On the other hand, on my trip to spain the only people to get punctures were either using XC tyres or XC tubes

I took chunky Nokian DH tyres on a Joyriders spanish holiday last year and got at least two punctures 😕

What about a HT in the Alps!

I’ve already bought a Dual Ply for the rear, tubeless on front tho.

Single plys, you cant really run them at low pressures. The sidewalls are piss thin. If you’re riding downhill, use downhill tires. If you’re mincing XC routes then you’ll probably get away with single plys.

how much psi…thats the important bit.
if you run under 30 to get some grip then defo needed IMO.
although DH tubes do make a difference

I’ve done lots of Alps on a hardtail and still managed a puncture every couple of days with Dual ply tyres and DH tubes. You’re clearly not riding hard enough 😛

Went tubeless for my Alps trip this year and managed several massive burping incidents as well as a few pinch flats right through the tyre.

5 riders, Megavalanche. Not exactly hardcore DH (more like DH orientated singletrack IMO). 3 with dual ply tyres & skinny XC tubes, no punctures all week.

2 with single ply tyres, a combined 7 punctures by mid afternoon on the first day. 4 single ply tyres taken off, and replaced with dual ply, no more punctures.

A DH tube doesn’t really make much of a difference as the sidewall is still paper thin on a single ply tyre, plus they weigh as much as a dual ply & skinny tube.

good point, re PSI. That does, er, puncture my original point a bit.

I was definitely mincing XC 🙂

If you’d done proper DH instead of your nan’s garden path ^^^^ you would have punctured 🙂

If you were wondering whether to buy some dual ply tyres specially for the Alps, or some other such silliness, there’s your answer…

funny that cause I ride round my local (not very gnar) trails and rip normal tyres* to pieces while my mates manage just fine. Guess that’ll be down to personal riding style and technique (or yes lack of technique 🙂 ) for me I’d be taking dual ply to the alps, tubeless.

*at 40psi and ust tyres occasionally too.

With all due respect, that’s a nice pic but not somewhere you’d assume to be puncture inducing…. unless you were riding through the boulder field bottom left of shot 😉

As already stated – the advantage of DP’s is that you can run them at low psi (20-25psi) without pinch-flats. The only way to minimise them with SP’s is to run much higher psi.

dual ply is the way i say….

lower pressure,and ride hard and fast with them on=no punctures

Agh. Ok

(full disclosure – bottled)

Thought long and hard about this one ahead of a trip to the Alps. Ended up going single-ply tubeless. But then I am a bit of a mincer so can probably get away with it.

Single ply Maxxis sidewalls still seem a lot beefier than a lot of other tyres I’ve used.