New job means I am back on the bike for getting to work. Will be riding the cross bike but want to change the tyres from the existing road ones to cyclocross ones so I can choose a few different options on the way home.

Bearing in mind light, cheap, strong, choose two, I am only really looking for cheap and strong.

I would quite like it to be a reasonable tyre on both canal path / smoothish trails and on roads. It doesn't however have to excel at either.

Any suggestions?

Schwalbe Marathon+ in 28mm or bigger. They'll probably last longer than you……

Unless it's a short commute I'd buy something light, it would do my head in to commute on sluggish tyres!

I love my speed kings but they wear in about 2 months if you do a lot of tarmac. I've now got 2 wheelsets, one with slicks and one with speed kings for the more off-road jaunts.

If I only had to have 1 set of tyres though, I'd still get the speed kings as they are fast rolling on road and great off road and I get cheap Contis…

Schwalbe Landcruisers, have central ridge so rolling is OK, tread either side for CX'ing it up. The central ridge isn't just a plain band though, so less sketchy than normal 'hybrid' tyres.

I use a fair amount of easy offroad on my normal commuter slicks though, you just have to be careful in the loose.

I found speedkings awful. They let go if you try to crank them over any, get knobbles ripped off them, wear out pronto and the set I had kept blowing off the rim left, right and centre. Rim is an open pro – hardly rubbish! Managed half the HONC on them before having to gaffa them to within an inch of their life, I was running out of tubes!

Not fussed with light tyres as I have a set of road tyres should I want to do that. Commute at it's shortest would be 4 miles.

Looked at the conti speedkings but my opinion of the MTB based version isn't great. Saw them cheap @ on-one but resisted.

Anyone tried schwalbe land cruisers?

I would quite like it to be a reasonable tyre on both canal path / smoothish trails and on roads.

I'd go for a 25c road tyre for that, TBH.

In fact, I run Vittoria Pavés as my commuting and winter road tyres (same bike) and was only riding them off road the other day. 24c, btw.

@ anotherdeadly hero – My normal road tyres are 23mm and don't fancy off roading on them at all. I am sure they would survive but I am not sure I would. I am tempted by the land cruisers though, was hoping for a few more to think about though.

There was some specialized I saw that had a similar tread to 8 blocks but cannot remember tyre name?

edit: maybe I am just a wuss then as others seem to use bald thin road tyres? Can't be much fun though?

Hi AJ, how the hell are you?
I use Landy's on my cross bike. They've styed on pretty much since last years 3 Peaks. They do the commute just fine.

"There was some specialized I saw that had a similar tread to 8 blocks but cannot remember tyre name?"

Specialized Houffalize. good tyres for what you want too!

Ah Mr Sparkle, okay cheers. 🙂

Fell running has been parked for this year as I try to sort my ankle out so just glad of the biking really.

Hows tricks over your way? Just had a look again at your CX bike in other thread. Them landies are chunkier than I thought. Which is good!

Kenda small block 8's here… they roll well enough and a fairly grippy. Don't know how long they will last, only done the one ride on them.

marathons

32mm small block 8's on mine, light and fast and grippy enough in the dry.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=24615

These are what I use daily in the 30mm, cheap, strong enough, not bad on the road and surprisingly capable off road.