I’m sure this has been beat to death already, but I didn’t get a whole lotta luck in the search. Does the Hookworm 24" make a good trials tire? The Fireball isn’t an option because it is too wide for my frame. Can I get enough bounce out of the Hookworm at 65psi like what it’s rated for?
The hookworm is a great freestyle tire. It would suck for trials. It has almost no bounce and it’s almost unridable at lower tire pressures.
I ride my hookworm at 110PSI, and don’t get much bounce at all. However, I think it makes any trials feel more… stable, I guess? I feel like I’m more in control. I tried my brother’s Onza 20" last weekend, and I could jump a whole lot higher, but when I landed, I lost control, because I was so used to the hard tire.
Although, I am satisfied with the grip the hookworm gets on dry surfaces.
I have ridden it for some time on some pretty low pressure. (My inner tube has a leak 
) And a think you get pretty good bounce.
But it wont grip ledges and stuff as good as a conventional trials tire would.
I originally had it my Nimbus when i bought it, but i now got a Gazza 24x2.6 .
Hope this helped a little.
I don’t know dude, i blame your unicycle for messing up my ankle. High tire pressure and no bounce makes all your landings really painful. It seems like it makes the uni heavier too, although I’m sure that’s just an illusion.
I think even a cheap bmx or mountain bike tire is better for trials than a hookworm.
Thanks for helping out, guys. What is this Gazza 2.6 that was mentioned? That’s about the max width my frame can handle. And I tried a really really cheap MTB tire and its profile was so square that I couldn’t keep the thing in a straight line. So maybe I need to get more than a $10 tire.
Anyone else??
I think I would prefer a hookworm to a fireball on my 24’’ if I was still using it for trials. Fireballs have paperthin sidewalls. Literally. This makes you have to run it at really high pressures to get bounce and to prevent pinchflats. Hookworms have better sidewalls as they are basically tread all over. Plus there is a 24x2.5 2 ply version available, which I assume would give better bounce. They should be grippy too since they have a rounder profile and are tread everywhere.
Please not I’ve never actually rode a fireball on my uni, just making an educated guess based on looking at them and feeling the sidewalls. I also rode them on urban assualt bikes for a while. I had a fireball on my muni, but I sold it when I got my trials uni.
Duh. Hello. THE Gazz. Except in 2.6. I’m gonna have to call uni.com and see if that thing is going to fit. It looks really tall.
Whats your frame?
I have the United Extra Large Adult Trainer. The wheel is the Sun BFR.
I got tha Nokian Gazz 2.6 on my 24" freestyle Nimbus.
I now use it for some muni.
It was a tough time to get it to fit my frame. I had the use the knife…
Hmm. The plot thickens. Does anyone know how tall the Gazz 24x2.6 is?
There is also the Hoggy G tire by 3G Bikes. Unicycle.com is out of stock, but you may be able to get it from some other distributor. 3G Bikes has a list of distributors on their web site.
The Hoggy G is listed as 3.45" wide, but that is a big exaggeration. It’s slightly less wide than the Fireball. I don’t know if the Hoggy G will fit in your frame.
The Hoggy G has more bounce than the Fireball because the Hoggy G is still ridable at a lower tire pressure. The Fireball is almost unrideable unless it is pumped up hard. The Hoggy G has much more bounce than the Hookworm.
So, it isn’t 3.45 but is still advertised that way? Wow. Still trying to figure that one out. Oh well. I think I’ll call uni.com tomorrow and figure this whole thing out. I need a tire soon!
It’s marketing. 
It is traditional for tire companies to misstate the width of bike tires. Mostly this is for marketing reasons.
A fireball tire is about 1/8’’ bigger than a Luna. A fireball measures about 2 3/4’’ while a luna is 2 5/8’’ by my measurements. Weird that most exaagerate while the trials tires seem to make em bigger than they say.
:: Pelvic Thrust ::
Re: Hookworm for trials
“mscalisi” <mscalisi@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> writes:
> The hookworm is a great freestyle tire. It would suck for trials. It has
> almost no bounce and it’s almost unridable at lower tire pressures.
I have two hookworm tires, a 20x1.95 and a 26x2.5, and they are
completely different. You’re right about the 20" version. It’s no
fun at low pressures and doesn’t hop well at all (but it is one
smooooth freestle tire).
The 26x2.5 says “Downhill” on the sidewall and is much beefier. There
is no problem riding it at low pressure. Still, it isn’t as bouncy or
forgiving as my 24x3 Duro - no big surprise there. I can’t be sure,
but looking at the Maxxis web site I get the impression that the
24x2.5 is a smaller version of the 26. Actually, to complicate
matters there seem to be 2 (maybe 3) version of the Hookworm 24x2.5:
One-ply, two-ply, and the BMX version could be different from the
Freeride tire.
Bottom line: Don’t assume that the 24" Hookworm won’t do trials based
on the fact that the 20" isn’t fit for the task. Hopefully a rider
with trials skills can say how well it will work.
Ken
Re: Re: Hookworm for trials
My statement is based on my experience with the 24 X 2.5 tire. I’m not sure which version it is, but I think it says “downhill” on it. I’ll look closer and report back.
note: I’m not much of a trials unicyclist, but I frequently do smaller hops and drops. I also have used Duro Wildlife 24x3, Gazz 24x3, whatever tire comes with the Summit, and cheaper Mt. Bike tires. My hookworm is much harder than any of those tires. At lower pressures, I seem to veer all over the road. The hookworm does provide awesome control and manovourability, well beyond any other tire I’ve used.