My favourite all-round tyre

Advantages: Comfortable, confidence building tyre, best in medium to soft terrain,
Disadvantages: Roling resistance penalty on hardpack and gravel

...The Cinders so far are my favourite all-purpose trail tyre. I like them better than the Fire XC Pros, they're slower rolling, but inspire more confidence. I have the cinders in 2.1. And it is a full 2.1 carcass, unlike many manufacturers whose 2.1 carcasses look somewhat skinny. The tyre is best suited to medium to soft terrain, where it excels, hooking up really nicely finding plenty of traction in the soft stuff. I run them between 35-40 psi, which gives decent comfort, and grip, and reasonable mud shedding ability . In very thick/deep mud, they tend to spin rather than grip, and they don't clear quite as quickly as a mud-specific tyre, but otherwise as long as you keep the tyre pressures down, the gear low and go for it, they'll get you through most muddy sections. On hardpack and gravel, the high knobs makes their...

fred_redwood 28.04.2008 · Read review
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Review of Panaracer Cinder Folding Tyre

A tyre fo all seasons

Advantages: Grip well in all conditions, durable, roll well
Disadvantages: None I can think of

...I live and ride in South Wales. The man made trais around Afan Argoed and Glyncorrwg, plus all the natural stuff in between, is where you'll most likely find me on my bike. It's wet down here in Wales, but thankfully, there's not much clay, so that really sticky mud you get in some parts of the country isn't too much of a problem down here. I'd experimented with many different types of tyre, before stumbling across these. I'd been riding Tioga 1.9's and going to the Panaracer 2.1's was a breath of fresh air. The increased grip, especially on the front, was amazing, and the rear tyre gripped like a mountain goat. Just make sure you put them on the right way around (follow the arrows on the side wall). As a tyre that can be used all year round, these are hard to beat. They grip well on the rocky bits, dig in on muddy climbs, and cope...

Greasylake 06.02.2008 · Read review
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Review of Panaracer Fire XC Pro Folding Tyre

Odyssey's path tyre.

Advantages: durable value for money good quality
Disadvantages: dirty sidewalls on tanwall version. thread can wear down

...There are a few versions of this tyre, the dual ply, the tan wall ones and the Mike Aitken signiture tyre. All of which basically follow the same design. I'm using this verison (dual ply) on my front wheel at 2.25 (which is the width of the tyre) and the Mike aitken version that has a tan wall on my back wheel at 1.95 width. It is reccomended that the 1.85" is good for Street/Park riding and the 2.1" is perfect for your front wheel in Dirt riding and racing. I have yet to test out my front tyre on dirt due to trails being flooded and damp at this time of the year. But i will say having a 1.85+ on your rear wheel acts a bit weird when riding dirt. The thread picks up dirt/mud quite easily and forms a smooth (slush) like covering on top which tends to be unstable when going into an angle at speed and kicks it self out. Also if you ride...

Young_1 10.12.2009 · Read review
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Review of Odyssey Path Dual PlyTyre

Pirelli, the tyres from the Calendar people . .

Advantages: Very good grip when you need it.
Disadvantages: Just the cost.

...I you shop around, at local tyre fitters as well as on the internet, you will find that there are many places selling bargain tyres, but you must pay for delivery, and fitting, and balancing, Oh and the new valve, then there is the charge for disposing of your old tyres. I decided this saving just wasn't worth the hassle. I therefore went to my local tyre fitting centre. My tyre expert is worth his weight in gold, and he runs his hand across the tread before doing anything else. He then knows if the steering geometry is wrong, in some cases it can save premature wear on your tyres, and can save the customer a fortune, never mind affecting safety. If you want to visit the Pirelli website, take a look see here:- http://www.pirelli.co.uk/web/default.page New tyres need to be run in, and then checked as often as you can...

smudgeybabes 13.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Pirelli Tyres

Performance or endurance tyres

Advantages: Hard wearing and good value
Disadvantages: Not very good in wet.

...I come from a racing background, with owning and racing many performance cars such as Supra, Skyline, Gto etc, I can say from my point of view toyo tyres are good for your money, but only in the dry. Wet weather driving with these tyres was like being on ice most of the time, because they are hard wearing I found them to be slippy and not much feed back from them during wet conditions. In the dry though they are great tyres got good heat into them and they did hold again feed back was not the best, but as in most cases you pay your money. These tyres are good for the price you pay and for everyday road use again are ok. But if you happen to be a bit of a fast road user and go out when wet please be careful with these tyres. Now I know 99% of the people who read this will most likely not race there car or try and take a corner at high...

Helga530 10.11.2009 · Read review
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Review of Toyo Tyres

Toyo Tyres

Advantages: great tyres
Disadvantages: Hard to find

...Toyo are a Japanese Tyre manufacturer that not many people have heard of. Yet to me they are the most sexy looking tyre around, if tyres can be sexy! I mean the tread pattern of course! I had toyos all around on my RS Turbo. The grip level was unreal and the depth of tread great. The tyres on my Tub were standard size 195/50/15's and a tyre that low in profile normally loses a lot of its tread in order to cater for the profile. Not the Toyo. It has a very wide tread pattern. Making a lot of contact with the road while giving it enough play to movce around and keep you stuck down. In the wet, the wide tread allowed the car to tip toe through the water rather than slip and slide through it. They dont just cater for quick cars. You can pick up a nice tyre for your family saloon or hatchback too. The range seems to grow...

andycharger 07.11.2001 · Read review
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Review of Toyo Tyres

Michelin Tyres

Advantages: Well known brand
Disadvantages: Go out of shape.

...Over the years, I reckon I have had most makes and brands attached to my car. From this I have been able to be more picky and choosey when buying my new tyres. I now know whats good, whats bad and what is worth avoiding. Michelin boast being one of the 2 tyre suppliers to the Formula 1 world championship. Yet it fails to pass its lessons leared from the track to the consumer. As much praise as people want to heap on the French Tyre giant, Michelin have always failed to meet my expectations. I have had these tyres twice. Once through coming with my new car and once through buying them as a replacement. When we had our new Ford Escort, it came with Michellin XT all around. 175/70/13's were the size we had. Soon we were experiencing problems with ride quality, particularly under braking or at high speeds. After several...

andycharger 07.11.2001 · Read review
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Review of Michelin Tyres

A classic XC tyre still going strong

Advantages: Good durability, great for all day rides
Disadvantages: None

...Although to many tyre choice on a bike tends to come down to what the local bike shop have that's cheap, there's a few things beyond that which mountain bikers look at when buying tyres. The first main thing tends to be the use that the tyre's going to get. Shove a slick tyre with no tread on a bike that's going to get used in the mud, and you're going nowhere. Put a mud tyre on and go and ride on a hard surface and you'll be puffing and panting like Ivor the Engine with the flu. The Fire XC Pros fit in somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. As the XC in the name implies, this is a cross country tyre. Cross country riders expect some grip in the mud, but not at the expense of putting so much grip on the tyre that it's hard going all the time. Panaracer seem to have managed that quite well with the Fire XC Pro, although...

Pritch 10.11.2002 · Read review
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Review of Panaracer Mountain Bike Fire XC Pro

Pilot Exalto - The Duracell of performance tyres.

Advantages: Excellent wet performance, Good cornering, Not too noisy, Fantastic wear resistance
Disadvantages: Poor initial traction, take 500 - 600 miles to wear in

...When my OEM-fit Bridgeston Potenza RE040s finally made it down to the tread-wear indicator I had them replaced with a pair of the new Michelin Pilot Exaltos. In a 205-45/17 fitting these are fairly intimidating beasties. None of your swoopy curves and slashes that look all sexy. Oh no. These purposeful hunks of rubber have three MASSIVE channels running around the tyre combined with some fairly agressive lugs (sipes?) around the outside edge. The mention of an outside edge indicates that these are directional tyres but maybe not in the strictest sense. The Bridgestones had an arrow indicating the direction of rotation the tyres should be mounted in, which ultimately meant that you could only swap the tyres along the same side of the car. The Pilot Exaltos, on the other hand, have an outside and an inside edge. Obviously you will...

LegendaryMrDude 09.09.2004 (03.01.2006) · Read review
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Review of Michelin Tyres

Tyred of paying high prices...

Advantages: Quick efficient service and a good price too
Disadvantages: None spring to mind

...I had to finally accept the truth - all four tyres on my car needed replacing, despite the protests from my credit card. I went to my local branch of ATS and asked for a price. They quoted £528 and could have the tyres in and on my car the next day. I went home slightly grief stricken by this amount so got busy on the internet to see what other prices I could find (whilst my credit card hid under the bed, quietly sobbing.) I wasn't particularly hopeful of finding many alternatives, as I live in a fairly remote part of Wales so outlets of any retailer are few and far between. However, I did have a look at Kwik Fit's website www.kwik-fit.com to see if there was a branch nearby, and if so, what price they could offer. I thought that it would be quite complicated and I would need to search through lists of tyres, with weird...

Pip2002 28.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Kwik-Fit Tyre & Exhaust Centres