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Tire talk
Thought I start a thread about tires. Medic Mike said something about "free boxing tires and shredding" used tires. What does that mean?
I have a Schwable Marathon (or Big Apple?) 26" with no tread and blue kevlar showing through all around. In fact, it has a visible hole through the tread in two places. After several nights of pickup the thing is still holding pressure. The pop-the-Schwable game is temporarily on hold but I will remount that thing until it goes boom. I've become a huge fan of Schwable, they last so long I don't get enough chance to try others.
Other tips, tricks and tire wisdom welcome.
ive been a fan of Vittoria Randonneur and Specialized all condition armadillo. In 28c, they are pretty beefy and reasonably priced(~$25) at my LBS. Takes me about 4-5 months to go through the tread, armor, and finally threads on the back tire. i skid alot.
the big apples came stock on my commuter bike, never used it for polo but I love them for city riding.
armadillo tires cost $60 a piece at all the specialized shops in town (bayou, bicycle connection). $25 is a steal for that tire. lately i'm running ribmo tires (~$30 online) on my polo and commuter bikes.
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carve. smash. eat shit.
Free boxing and shredding tires means I go to the local bike stores, or Polo Haus, and get free previously used tires that I proceed to ride until I destroy them with my rampant skidding. I like this because it's free and the tires are probably going to ended up in the landfill eventually anyway.
There are a few tires that Portland seems the really like but they are all MTB tires. Maxxis holy roller are somewhere around 40 a piece but I've seen them last a long time and give a serious grip at fast turns. Train Wreck, won a continental tire and after a month of playing on it finally blew it out and he skids quite a bit. Though apparently those were 50$ tires, Not sure of model.
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Marco!
I use a Maxxis Columbiere on the front and it gives crazy grip. It's a super soft compound, think dual compound with the hard middle bit missing to make it a cheaper tyre. They're also really light. On the back I run a free boxed schwalbe marathon plus which makes up for the weight saved on the front (super mega heavy), but the last free boxed one lasted for months and months with lots of skidding on some vicious courts.
Your forearm looks pretty muscly and oversized in this photo crabclaw polo man!
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bikepolo.com.au
urbanbicyclist.org
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2384/2446454160_d1ba28745c.jpg?v=0
Schwalbe Marathon Plus
I run a Soma Everware on the rear. They're 5mm thick. Although they end up 'squared off', they last forever... and I skid a shit ton.
The tendancy to square off is strange but I rode one of these tires for a year with one changed tube and heavy traffic skids before it ever showed threads. If I played 700, this would be my choice.
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Marco!
Kenda Kwick EZ Roller - basically a 29er tire (700 x 40 or 45mm). Anyway, extra deep discount on 'em at Nashbar right now - can't beat 12 bucks plus shipping.
Jesse
Collar City Bike Polo
Troy, NY
i rode fixed (front brake) skidding all over the place on my panaracer ribmos for 4 months through 3 major tournaments polo weekend get togethers and two nights of pickup a week (minimum of 23 miles commute to polo each time on said tires) and they aren't even close to showing wear...amazing. my teammate polofuries has them as well and he tells the same story. worth every penny without a doubt but when they don't run large enough for your tastes...schwalbe makes the ultimate 29er tires period for polo or commuting...big apples, enough said. they eat glass and last forever...
FTL BIKE POLO...
^^^ what he said. although i skid more than him. and my back tire is not just starting to show wear. I am rotating the front to the back for extra long love.
RIBMO for life. or until i find a better tire. haha. loyalty shmoyalty.
(that was meant to be a Polofuries post)
RIBMO4LIFE. Buy one of these and if you don't like it I'll buy it from you.
x2 Ben.
I've tried every tire I could get my hands on and the ribmo is my keeper.
mkebikepolo.com
x3 ben.
ribmos are the first tire since playing polo that have lasted more than a month or two. shredded lots of tires...dirt cheap and expensive alike...ribmos are the ruler so far and at around 30$ its a no-brainer, seriously.
FTL BIKE POLO...
How is the stopping power? I've had some tires that last forever but have zero grip when you're braking.
that depends on what you play on. we play on some pretty rough parking lot pavement, so i can run my 28s at full pressure. in austin, the court we played on was super slick so a lot of people were sliding around a bit. i started running my tires at around half pressure and that seemed to solve the problem.
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carve. smash. eat shit.
I do want to add: though RibMo's wear BETTER than other tires on rough courts, these courts will kill any tire, including RibMo's - like mine last weekend.
I would never use them under normal conditions due to the weight, but I'd rather kill a Marathon-plus-type than a RibMo on rough courts. Just in the rear. And I'd bring a spare.
Scwalbe table tops! 26 by 2.25 big fat awesome freeride tires that last me about three months cause I.....................
Skid & Destroy
Axles of Evil
I've been running Schwalbe Big Apples for a long while... they're bald as shit but nothing showing through yet. Great tires, and you can pump 'em up high.
Just put some 32c Panaracer Ribmos on my commuter/road bike, and I have a good feeling about them after only a few weeks. Pulls several LARGE chunks of glass out of them so far, and no flats.
{}------- lexington -------{}
i recently bought a ribmo to see what all the fuss was about. now i know.
plus, it comes in a wider range of sizes than the soma, which is no small thing considering it's the only part of the bike stopping my ass from crashing into boards.
Columbia, MO
i'm used a 26x1.5 bontrager h2 on mine. i like it so far but i'm definitely eating it up after about 3 weeks. rough pavement in savannah. i'll see how baltimore treats when i get back. i want to try the new michelin line of heavy duty commuter tires. super fucking thick.
my question is: has anyone ever had their brake/sidewall blow out on their rim (while playing)?
so u guys runnin the ribmo's, does a 700x28 fit like a 28? or is a 28 more like a 32? im about to purchase one but my rear wheel clearance is pretty tight.
how wide is your rim?
24mm
Depends. Where would you have clearance issues? With your stays, or with your brakes? I have 700x32 Ribmos on my commuter. It's a cross bike, so it has plenty of clearance. I have them mounted on Mavic Aksium Race rims. They don't seem to be terribly wide in profile, but they are a bit tall in terms of outside diameter. There's so much rubber in the contact patch, that the tires seem to be a bit more "pointed" in their profile than say, rounded.
{}------- lexington -------{}
ok, I just measured my 700x32s for reference:
my rims are 21mm wide
32c Ribmos are measuring exactly 31mm tall and 31mm wide for me, so just a hair smaller than indicated.
This may help draw some conclusions about the 28s.
{}------- lexington -------{}
thanx alot guys!!
i've blown a hole in the sidewall of my tire twice in the past 2 weeks. this has never happened to me before. been using a panaracer crosstown 26x1.75 (27tpi). has a good amount of rubber on teh tread, but i'm thinking the compound is a bit too soft to deal with polo abuse. any recommendations for a tire that is about 26x1.5 with a strong sidewall that is a good value?
Try surfas drifter
Put together some of that coal money, go down to the company store, and get Schwalbe Marathons or Marathon Plus.
Just invest. I've been abusing/skidding the hell out of my rear at Fernwood (almost as bad as Grandview) and a summer at Grandview, plus traveling plus plus. No complaints, just sweet sweet performance.
so i did what was recommended and bought a marathon for my front tire and lo and behold i got another sidewall puncture last night. the only flats i've ever gotten on the court have been through the sidewall. all it took was a good mallet whack. still looking for my dream front that can stand up to daily polo abuse.
michelin city protek plus?
Was it a puncture or a tear? What sort of tire pressure are you running? How often are you checking it? Any possibility of a brake or cable or anything at all rubbing on the sidewall?
These days I'm on Geax Booze 2.3's. My tires take hard mallet whacks all the time and the only sidewalls I've had fail were on very old tires, or with poorly set-up brakes that rubbed the side.
i usually inflate it to a bit below max...about 60psi. i just checked last week so it should have been still good. it was a front tire and i run rear disc only. it was definitely caused by a mallet strike. as soon as the attacking player hit my tire with his mallet head it was deflated in a matter of seconds.
Huh. Just sounds strange to me. My front tire gets in the way of people's mallets all night long. Some people have even been know to maliciously whack my annoying tires (shocker!!)
Do you cheaters up in Nanaimo put spikes on your mallets heads? {grin}
it was strange. the other two times i've had sidewall blowouts was side-by-side, tire on tire contact as we were turning into each other, which i imagine was more of a pinch.
actually, nanaimo has been experimenting with an innovative military bacteria that will target an opponent's petroleum based components and eat away at them at a rate which will holify most tires and tubes within the span of 10 minutes. i read a book about that, but i made up the word holify.
700 or 26?
I have never witnessed someone's sidewall popping after a mallet strike. That's odd. Either that or someone needs a new mallet.
anybody tried CST Salvo? cheap, 60tpi, 5mm rubber.
don't do it , you burn through it in four polo sessions. I know they are expensive, but get a Schwalbe marathon plus. or a Panaracer riBmo. or a vitoria randonneur. if you have to go cheap try the cst selecta, it should last longer than the salvo and costs around twenty dollars.
x2 on cst selecta. i think i paid $16 + shipping per tire. i'm running 1.75, but i think there is a smaller size too. mine have a reflective sidewall, if you care about that.
what Mikey was talking about is since Portland has so many bike shops of which mine is one, the availability of slightly imperfect and invaluable knobby tires and some slicks is abundant to the point of being given away. Free tires for polo bikes. I take a load of tires over to the polo house every so often for people to use, then they go to CCC for recycling.
on the cheap GEAX street runner's doing great for me so far (a month or so)
Primo comet in front, 100psi, superslick. yeah!
are those 35c ribmos grippy enough to run up front?
and what kind of psi can you get in them?
I finally ran with a Schwable Marathon Plus in Lexington 2 weeks ago, paid a vomit inducing price for it in a shop because I'm done with paying 30$ for a Kenda and having it last a day (I skid too much, says you).
End of the first day, treads were smooth, end of the second day, blue was showing, I was super pissed.
After some further play, it's still holding up, that blue layer is pretty god damn thick, but I'm still super disapointed in the thing, especially with how much I paid for it. (Even if I hadn't been stuck in a shop paying way too much, online they seem to be significantly more expensive than a RiBMo as well.
We'll see how much longer that tire lasts, but I don't think it'll be very long.
I had some RiBMos on there since I built the bike, in January, until Lex, which included at least a solid month of playing on a really awful gritty/shatteredglass surface.
So far it's looking like it's going to be RiBMo: 4 months , Marathon +: 1 month.
Does anyone have anything else they'd recommend for a heavy skidder in 26"s?
Yes, this.
http://www.conti-online.com/generator/www/de/en/continental/bicycle/them...
I've been using it for a 4-5 months. Its just starting to show orange.
I'm a fairly heavy skidder, and I have a Michelin City (26 x 1.8) in back. It's heavy, but holds up super well. Not sure if they make them skinnier, since 1.8s probably won't fit on a Joust.
running a ribmo 26x2.0 since November- I skid quite a bit, still no threads showing. I think it was $33 delivered from universalcycles. Love this tire except for one thing- it sounds like a piccolo pete going off every time I skid.
and half the weight of a BA (depending on which option you choose)
Man I skid a lot, and my tires last for at least 4-5 months but maybe thats because they are big ol' 2.35's on my awesome One by One. muahahahahahaah!
Maxxis Hookworms, 26x2.50 tires. Paid 50 bucks for a pair of them (they are normally 40 bucks for just one) and clinched them on my bike recently. free ride style tires, excellent quality, will have to follow up in terms of life, but the skid is great and the size of the tire = balls bounce 20 feet back beyond the shooter. also, the size of the tire gives me some excellent turning power and yes, the size of the tire is fearsome.
Riding them on a KHS Solo One which is fairly similar to the 1x1.
and the weight is a bit up there.
maxxis hook worms weigh 1,035 grams a piece, thats like 2.43 pounds each. They are bad ass though. lotta rotational weight to be pushing and pulling around.
I run 700x28 soma everwear and they are the only tire that has ever held up for me for a month and a half. I skid probably more than anyone I know and that's about how long they last me. I have used several different tires and nothing holds up like the soma everwear!
I bought a Schwable Marathon Plus touring HS 404 tire for the Bench Minor tournament (3 months ago) and it's now coming to the end of it's life. This tire has the most rubber i've ever seen, it's certainly not a light tire. Once you get through the black there is LOTS of blue to go through before your at the threads and even when the blue is starting to get thin the thick side walls keep the rearend stiff. I play on a not so smooth surface, ride only a rear brake and like to skid. Three thumbs up for this tire. I would give it four if it weren't for the price, $70(cnd) but i would have went through at least two $30 dollar tire by now. Well worth the investment. Highly recomment this tire.
http://www.schwalbetires.com/bike_tires/road_tires
ottawa plays on a court made of jagged diamonds.
i've been using one of these on my rear wheel with dual brake setup for a year, and commuted one winter in Toronto on it before that. it's finally starting to show some wear but i'm not seeing any blue yet. very little skidding on it tho, and when i skid it's on a polished concrete court.
i tend to use older tires that are worn then insert "Toughy Strips" or "Mr. Tuffy Strips" inside the tire. That way you can skid the tire all round until it almost splits before having to replace them.
Sounds better to playing all the way through and blowing the tube, which I've done too many times now.
I've switched off the Schwables to big fat (2.3) Geax Booze tires. The wear is good but not as good as the Schwables. My 1x1 is a rubbery tank now. Low psi, deep leans, stable skids. Polo.
I think a good tire for the money is the Kenda Kwikroller with Ironcap.
They come in 26 or 700.
And about half the price or Armadillos, etc..
When I rolled on 26"s, I just turned to my LBS for used tires. A couple were willing to throw me takeoffs. Most people dont want their "old tires" even if they are pretty new. I had a rear disk, so I'd burn through them pretty quickly - I tried to swap them before a blow out, to save a tube. Sometimes I would throw an evenly worn tire on the front.
Now I roll fixed 700 rear, with a 26" disk front with a 1" slick somethingname. Bontraeger Hardcase 32cm be my tire of choice. I have NEVER flatted with a Hardcase. Not once. Not on my commuter (matched 700x32), never on my polo steed... not even when my wheel was unridably taco-ed have I gotten a flat. (jinxed it, eh?). That is riding fixed/front brake (all bikes), yet fixed skidding a fair amount.
Thick slicks 700x25 on the front 700x28 on the back.
hey, quick question before the Worlds
can you get Marathon plus in Seattle?
at what price?
there are any better alternatives price/qualitie?
all this for 700c, please
tha
I would imagine so, might want to just order some Panaracer ribmos though. Cheaper and thicker.
Wore through a Marathon plus on the rear in a week one time, been rollin a ribmo for over 3 months, little wear.
That being said I'm not from seattle but QBP hooks them up so, yes.
Bontrager H2 700x35. Its whats up. I've been considering switching to 38c in the front though.
+1 for freeboxing tires, i get mine from the local coop, or bike shops (just ask, they always have tons of tires lying around)
However i have noticed that the generic 26X1.95 cheap knobby tires skid through faster than most of the cheap slicks i have used.
But i have just switched to a dual brake setup and i still skid my rear wheel but with the added resistance to the front wheel i have had the same cheap tire on for months, and i play 3X a week, also i stop much quicker too, if you are going through tires too fast i would suggest dual pull brake levers
http://www.sickbikeparts.com/catalog/images/Duel-Pull-Brake.jpg
they usually go for about 5-10 bucks and come in linnear pull and canti
New tires at Interbike this year that look polo approved for fixed riders and rear brakers:
This is the Duro Tru Shine. It is reflective, which is good for riding to and from the court, as well as being 3mm thick in rubber.
Can anybody at interbike this year confirm of a 26" model?
slapdick bike polo - washington dc
slapdick bike polo - washington dc