# slicks on a mountainbike, advice please?



## scorpiongirl (Jan 18, 2010)

I am training for a long distance ride, using my mountainbike. Its quite heavy but the plan is to purchase a road bike. Financially I have to put it off for a while but now I'm thinking of putting slicks on my mountainbike. Anyone has any advice or would you say, just wait till I can afford a road bike?
I do trials/road, climbing, just getting a bit slow because of the knotty tires.
Am still not sure if I would get myself a cyclocross bike or road bike, but thats for later. I think I feel more for cyclocross races than road racing. Maybe that's an important point too regarding my purchase??


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## Chuck_ MI (Nov 14, 2009)

I used slicks on my mountainbike for commuting before I got into road bikes. I found Tioga City Slickers and Primo Comets to be good tires. The Comets are lighter than the City Slickers, but not as puncture-resistant. Both tires come in sizes all the way down to 26X1.25, quite a bit skinnier than your average knobby tire.
I had bad experiences with Specialized Fat Boy tires, but YMMV.


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## Lifelover (Jul 8, 2004)

Go for it. Slicks on a MTB are much faster than most people think.

If you want fat slick, I use Continental "Town and Country". They are great. For thinner slicks, I use slickasours on another bike.


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## tihsepa (Nov 27, 2008)

Schwalbe makes some really good tires for that. try some big apples or marathons.


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## Peter P. (Dec 30, 2006)

Putting slicks on a mountain bike is ideal, especially if you're not a dedicated roadie. You will laugh at how fast a mountain bike can be. You'll easily be able to keep up with roadies on a slick shod mountain bike.

For straight road use and no baggage on the bike, I recommend the Panaracer Pasela in 26x1.25". You'll need matching, small diameter tubes to go with them. For a mixture of rough dirt roads and asphalt, I use a Bontrager Invert, 26x1.5" tire.

Here's my mountain bike wearing each style of tire:


















If at all possible, I recommend you replace any front shock with a rigid fork. You'll lose a good chunk of weight and eliminate the unneeded suspension bobbing when on the road. A rigid fork is good to have anyway, should you need to remove your shock fork for service. Your local bike shop can hook you up. A friend of mine bought a Kona Project 2 rigid fork for well under $100 from bikeman.com and loves it.


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## xxl (Mar 19, 2002)

scorpiongirl said:


> I am training for a long distance ride, using my mountainbike. Its quite heavy but the plan is to purchase a road bike. Financially I have to put it off for a while but now I'm thinking of putting slicks on my mountainbike. Anyone has any advice or would you say, just wait till I can afford a road bike?
> I do trials/road, climbing, just getting a bit slow because of the knotty tires.
> Am still not sure if I would get myself a cyclocross bike or road bike, but thats for later. I think I feel more for cyclocross races than road racing. Maybe that's an important point too regarding my purchase??


The cyclocross bike is good for cyclocross, the road bike is good for road. People ride 'cross bikes on the road, of course, but road bikes have features (e.g., more frame sizes, lower BB/geometries, a touch lighter) that make them the better option, if you're planning on primarily riding on the road. If you're thinking you won't do but the occasional road excursion, you might not want to bother with a road bike.

BTW, what distance are you training for? If it's less than a few hours, I'd be inclined to just use the slicks. Much cheaper than a bike (obviously), and slicks will make an immediately noticeable difference in your speed. You'd still be faster on a road bike, but you can go pretty fast on a slick-clad MTB. Just don't think those slicks will do anything when you go back off-road.


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## Deering (Apr 10, 2007)

*Careful*

The slicks should work well for you. I used the Panaracer’s T-serve at 1.25 and the Continental Sport 1.3 and liked both of them. 
Just watch out for the upgrade bug. The slicks will help you roll a lot faster than the mtn knobbies, so you may start to rethink your gears, and possibly want to change the cassette to be better for the road. Then there is always the fork and the front suspension. So if you’re like me, there is always a temptation to make ‘one more small change’ and before you know it, you have dropped a lot of money into a temporary road bike which will impact the available cash for that new bike.


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## chandne (Jan 22, 2004)

The gearing will hold you back (except you can spin up short hills fast) but you will be a faster than knobbies. I went down this road once. Just spend the money and buy a roadbike. Now if this is a 29er mtn bike with thin slicks, it will work for a while.


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## TWB8s (Sep 18, 2003)

I'll assume it's a 26" mtb not a 29er. the tire recommendations for the 26" are great. If you have a 29er, Michelin makes a 700x 32 road tire with a minor tread so it's almost perfectly slick. I have a set of those I use on my 29er when they're not on my road bike.

You'll find out if your MTB fit is correct if you're riding it on the road a bunch.


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## walter2007 (Nov 22, 2007)

I've used the specialized fat boys (26 x 1.25) for a few years now and find them to be an excellent tire.


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## scorpiongirl (Jan 18, 2010)

xxl said:


> The cyclocross bike is good for cyclocross, the road bike is good for road. People ride 'cross bikes on the road, of course, but road bikes have features (e.g., more frame sizes, lower BB/geometries, a touch lighter) that make them the better option, if you're planning on primarily riding on the road. If you're thinking you won't do but the occasional road excursion, you might not want to bother with a road bike.
> 
> BTW, what distance are you training for? If it's less than a few hours, I'd be inclined to just use the slicks. Much cheaper than a bike (obviously), and slicks will make an immediately noticeable difference in your speed. You'd still be faster on a road bike, but you can go pretty fast on a slick-clad MTB. Just don't think those slicks will do anything when you go back off-road.


The distance is 260 km but it will be done in a two day event; 130 km each day. It's a charity ride for Conquer Cancer. Think that I would like to train with slicks but maybe when I get closer to the ride, hopefully purchase a road bike or cyclocross bike.


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## walter2007 (Nov 22, 2007)

scorpiongirl said:


> The distance is 260 km but it will be done in a two day event; 130 km each day. It's a charity ride for Conquer Cancer. Think that I would like to train with slicks but maybe when I get closer to the ride, hopefully purchase a road bike or cyclocross bike.



You will be pleasantly surprised by the feel of your bike by changing to slicks. 

Good Luck


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## Lifelover (Jul 8, 2004)

chandne said:


> The gearing will hold you back (except you can spin up short hills fast) but you will be a faster than knobbies. I went down this road once. Just spend the money and buy a roadbike. Now if this is a 29er mtn bike with thin slicks, it will work for a while.


What speed can you maintain at 100 RPM in the top gear. I'm not going to do the math, but I suspect it is pretty easy to maintain 20-23 MPH on a MTB without spinning out.

Why would a 29er be significantly better than a 26?

As a few people have already said, most roadies would be amazed at how fast you can ride on a standard MTB with slicks.


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## MR_GRUMPY (Aug 21, 2002)

If the bike is a "Hardtail" and has a rigid fork, with slicks, the bike will ride like a heavy road bike. If the bike is dual suspension bike.....forget it.


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## Nielly (Sep 21, 2009)

I've ridden my specialized epic (dual suspension) about 80 miles on pavement once as I was training for an mtb endurance race and just wanted to see how it was to spend that much time in the saddle. With slicks on it wasn't awful, plenty of gear but bigger jumps between so not ideal for the road. I also have the ability to lock out both ends so that makes all the difference, otherwise it would have sucked.


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## laffeaux (Dec 12, 2001)

A solution to the gearing issue is to install a smaller cassette on the wheel. If you're running a 32 or 34 in the rear, you'll never need that big of a cog (especially with a MTB triple crank). Install an 11-23 or 11-25 cassette and you'll be happier.

The only time that you'll "spin out" is on steeper downhills. On flat terrain you'll do fine. The bike won't handle as quickly as a road bike, but will do fine for what you're looking for.


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## California L33 (Jan 20, 2006)

MR_GRUMPY said:


> If the bike is a "Hardtail" and has a rigid fork, with slicks, the bike will ride like a heavy road bike. If the bike is dual suspension bike.....forget it.


As long as the suspension is set up correctly a boing-boing won't boing-boing much and isn't bad on the roads, and you'll never complain about how rough they are  I rode one as my main bike for more than a year with combination road/trail tires (narrow solid strip down the center), mostly on the street, and it wasn't bad. They're heavy going up hills, but are usually geared ridiculously low.


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## misterdangerpants (Oct 23, 2008)

Heck, just turn your mountain bike *into* a road bike! That's what I did.  

As for tires I use Maxxis Hookworms. 2.5 inches of sheer luxury. I've logged several hundred miles on these and they're a great road tire, even if they are on the heavy side (1200g each, I think). I've also used Schwlabe Super Moto, which are 2.35" but are much lighter (690g), and also like them a lot.


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## Kuma601 (Jan 22, 2004)

misterdangerpants said:


> Heck, just turn your mountain bike *into* a road bike! That's what I did.


I really like what you did with this. Good job!

With my Fisher HKII. Went economically by putting Performance City Slicks.Because it does roll faster, that brought about new gearing even though it remains a 7spd. 12-21 cassette and bigger chainrings. I wasn't quite pleased with the canti's so some V-brakes were put on. Was considering some lighter wheels but as a MTB with appropriate geometry, the handling is nothing close to a road bike at these speeds. At that point I realized, that was the end of the updates.


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## jkittleson (Feb 3, 2010)

I've been running the Maxxis Zenith's on my Specialized Epic at 85 psi. They have held up well over the last month and 450+ miles. I highly suggest running sealer as I had two flats within the first two weeks.

And yes, beware of the upgrade bug. I am a few weeks of buying a Tarmac Expert for the MS150 ride I have been traiing for.


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## RussellS (Feb 1, 2010)

MR_GRUMPY said:


> If the bike is a "Hardtail" and has a rigid fork, with slicks, the bike will ride like a heavy road bike.


No. It will ride like a heavy hybrid bike. Not a road bike. Long ago I had a mountain bike and put 2.1 slicks on it. It was fun and rode great. Fairly fast. But it was still a mountain bike sitting bolt upright in the wind with all your weight on the rear wheel. There was no getting stretched out horizontal like a properly fitted road bike. Handling wasn't the same either. 2.1 slicks don't handle like 23mm road wheels. But it was good and fun for riding the mountain bike on the evening group rides. But not a replacement of a road bike.


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## HMBAtrail (Jan 8, 2008)

If your mountain bike is disc brake, another thing to consider is that many 26" bikes can fit 700c (29er) wheels with a 23mm tire. It depends on where the chainstay bridge is located.


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## Deering (Apr 10, 2007)

*One more thing to consider*

_
Think that I would like to train with slicks but maybe when I get closer to the ride, hopefully purchase a road bike or cyclocross bike._​
Something else to consider is that you should not do any long rides without an adequate adjustment period. In other words, if you are going to be going from a mtn bike setup to a road bike, give yourself time to get the fit of the bike down. Make sure that you will be comfortable on the bike as well as getting used to the handling. This may only take a few rides, but try not to leave it to the last minute for changes.


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## TallCoolOne (Jan 18, 2010)

I recommend putting slicks on a mountain bike. I rode in a recreational group ride last fall with some periods of picked up pace on the rides. I could hang on the back end of the paceline with mostly roadbikes for the most part. The only time I would get dropped was on hills. I would be running my biggest gear to keep up and then when I hit a hill I had to shift down and the roadies would pretty much maintain speed and I would get dropped. Fortunately, I was with a kind group and they would sit up at the top of the hills and wait for me.

From my experiences, I gained probably 2 to 5 mph with the slicks.


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## Moozh (Feb 18, 2010)

This is a cool thread and one that fits what I just did to my old rigid mountain bike.

I have a rather poor pic, but I put race slicks on my 26" mtb wheels and made my bike a single-speed. The bike has been sitting in stock form in my basement for about 10-years and I decided to get it out, make it a simple city sprinter. Deliberately not trying to make it something specific genre-wise, just something that will hopefully work. I figure it's been in the basement unloved for a spell, I wont pretend to be the overly attentive owner so lets make it as low maintenance as possible. Get on, pedal, get fit, figure out the rest along the way. 

I would like to report how she performs but alas the weather isnt agreeing and its foul out where I am so I'll have to wait a spell. I only just finshed it a few days ago.

I put Conti ultragatorskins on it, 26x1-1/8" because "thats all they had for 26" wheels, and I was after the low roll resistance, puncture resistance rather than comfort (have a set of Schalwbe Kojaks and tube in reserve just in case its too rock hard to tolerate out on the road). With the single speed and I have to admit to not being in the best of shape I am hoping I have struck a decent enough balance for now. I'm sure I'll make adjustment as I feel I need em, already I'm pretty sure I'm going to either get a larger rear cog (16t at present...part of the single-speed conversion kit) or a smaller toothed chainwheel (49t chainwheel came with the crankset..whachagonnado?), so my ratios look as if I'm all about the sprint and am looking to walk up all the hills, its what I got for now, I'll adjust later, no sweat.

I'm also wondering if I should flip the stem to put me in a position over the front wheels a bit more. There is not much of what I would consider comfort here to start with but perhaps a touch of road ergo bias and more weight distribution instead of it all on my butt..I dunno..we'll see.

Good luck on your project..

somewhat crappy cellphone pic..:


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## scorpiongirl (Jan 18, 2010)

Deering said:


> _
> Think that I would like to train with slicks but maybe when I get closer to the ride, hopefully purchase a road bike or cyclocross bike._​
> Something else to consider is that you should not do any long rides without an adequate adjustment period. In other words, if you are going to be going from a mtn bike setup to a road bike, give yourself time to get the fit of the bike down. Make sure that you will be comfortable on the bike as well as getting used to the handling. This may only take a few rides, but try not to leave it to the last minute for changes.


For sure I will not do this as a last moment thing. Probably two months before the ride, also want to change to clipless and need some time for that too Thanks!:thumbsup:


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