King of the Road
Written: Oct 22 '02 (Updated May 27 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Turns mountain bikes into 'strassenkruzers' @ 80psi
Cons: None found to date
The Bottom Line: Small expense to turn mountain bikes into road machines you can tour with in high pressure comfort.
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| rayxt's Full Review: Michelin WildGripper City |
If you didn't know it already from your automobile, the same seems to apply to bicycles - there are tire manufacturers and there is Michelin. These semi-slick 'city' tires prove the Bibendum put their R&D money where you need it - on the road.
The instant you touch them you can feel the quality and strength of the tread and sidewalls. They are tough stuff and you need bicycle tire irons to fit or remove them.
You're on steel belts and a racing rubber compound which just hangs in there - at pressures up to 80psi on a 1.5" (or 1.25") tire, making silence, speed and less sweat pedaling a reality.
There's probably more junk on roads like broken glass, scrap steel, car parts etc etc, all sharper and more likely to cause a blow out than anything you get on a rocky trail. But you see from the photo how the thick tread rolling surface is designed to almost totally protect the sidewalls (like an inverted umbrella) with the sidewalls going back inside to the rim. This means there's a much reduced risk of ripping or gashing the sidewalls on junk as you might with conventional tread design tires whose sidewalls tend to balloon out wider than the tread. Little wonder then that the City is apparently a favorite of professional inner city bicycle couriers (beside the Vrederstein Monte Carlo). Earn your bread on wheels and you buy only the best.
For the GBPounds10 (US$16) I paid mail order through Settle Cycles (www.settlecycles.co.uk), can you go wrong? For what I saved with these tires I added Slime anti-puncture strips between the tire and the inner tube for extra protection.
How do they perform in torrential rain? Totally unreal! If you've got disk brakes, these tires stick so well in the wet you can still jam the skids on and go over the handlebars.
A note about tire pressures though. If you use an ordinary hand pump you will NOT be able to (easily) inflate almost ANY bicycle tire to the top end of the recommended pressure range where road tires come into their own for low rolling resistance. Although there are special high-tech high-pressure hand pumps on the market, treat a hand pump as something you take with you to use to inflate your tire after changing a flat. To inflate to 60-80 PSI range (which is much better!!) you NEED a foot pump with a gage.
Another point is the 'load bearing capacity' of this (or any) bicycle tire. This may be important IF you weigh OVER 220lbs (100Kgs). As most of your weight is on the rear wheel, a 26x1.5 (37x559) tire might not support your weight (plus any baggage) without damage to the sidewalls especially when subjected to repeated shocks on bad roads and bumps. See my review of the Michelin WildGripper Country 26x1.95 tire which goes to 80 PSI for rock hard road commuting but possible 35 PSI for soft ground.
The bottom line is, you won't believe the difference riding on City compared to 'fat' off road tires.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
rayxt
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Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
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