Correct me if I"m wrong, but 19" wheels are designed to fit the same crown height as a 20." So if you want a smooth tire, why not get a uni with a strong 20" rim and save yourself the trouble of shaving? Hookworms come in 2.5… that’s not really much for volume loss.
The 20" hookworms only go up to 2.125. Also 19" wheels tend to fit a bit taller than 20" tires.
Plus 19" tires are designed to be run at a low pressure, whereas 20" tires are not and tend to fold and stuff at lower pressures.
Some people have done this, but it obviously requires buying a new rim and spokes and rebuilding the wheel. There was a thread in which we tossed around ideas for the new KH uni (before the 09 model came out) with Kris, and he mentioned that he was interested in looking into making his own 19" bmx tread tyre for street riding. I’m not sure whether this idea is still in the pipeline or not going to happen, but it sounded pretty cool.
I don’t know where you are getting this info from because I just dug through 15 pages of search results, found the thread you were talking about and two others that were similar and in none of them was there mention of Kris designing a new tire.
Haha.
I think if you plan on riding a 20" ‘bmx’ uni for street, you should plan to get used to a harder tire pressure and kind of ditch the forgiving squishyness of a trials tire. There are some pretty wide 20" tires out there, but if you are wanting a tire around a 2.5’ size, I think it will be easier and better to just run a trials tire with a bit higher pressure than normal.
Shaving takes patience. taking the nubs off is a lot easier when using a wet or lubed blade. Those electric turkey knifes cut through the nubs like… turkey…
Or just ride it tell its bald. =p
It was in this thread KH 2007 Products- details & info are here
I can’t be bothered wading through it all.
I can.
38 pages, read every single post typed by Kris, and not a single word of a smooth 19" tire,
Plus, Hookworms aren’t exactly the lightest tyres out.
I beleive I have seen Khris mention it somwhere, but I’m not positive,
I remember Kris talking about it too. I don’t think it was in that thread though.
I remember it being pretty off topic.
In the Trials tire thread.
Yeah I made the suggestion based on starting with a 20, not suggesting it would be practical to rebuild a 19.
Oh… Well I’m sorry for wasting your time. Seriously. I was sure it was in that thread, but I guess it all happened at around about the same time.
Wasnt a waste of time at all. No worries. 
There is a search thread tool, which brought up nothing, I also manually went through looking for any instance of the word tire or tyre, and nothing came up.
The only thing close was mentioning that there would be enough room for fatter tires, and the mention of Slicker 29er tires.
Thanks Sam, I spent quite a while looking and came up with nothing, this is news to me so I’m pretty happy about it.
Sorry I posted this without refreshing with everyone elses comments on it.
Yea, I tried searching the thread and was confused that I couldn’t find anything. Sorry if I mislead you. It’s quite an interesting thread anyway. Thanks for finding the post Sam (AgentQ)
Sweet as. There’s some pretty interesting stuff in that thread anyways. It reminded me of the excitement of waiting for the new KH to come out haha
This response is to a few of the earlier posts, but I can’t be bothered to quote them all.
I was after exactly what I said, which was a 19" tyre, that had the same volume as the 2.5" but with a street tread rather than a trails tread. I think it would be pretty popular seeing as there are a lot of people riding street on 19".
I dont think running a 20" wheel would work too well because there isn’t a wide enough 20" tyre to give you the volume you would want for riding street.
Which brings us back to tyre shaving. I’d really rather buy a tyre that’s already how I want it though!
Oh dear, another double post. It has been a while since my last one though!
I have been thinking more about the shaving tyre thing and I think it probably would be easier if I did just run a 20" BMX rim that is built to take almost as much force as a 19" trials rim. This way you could put a 2.2-2.3" tyre on that is pretty much already shaved.
The main problem with this is that you wouldn’t be able to run the same kind of tyre pressures that people run on a trials tyre cuz it would just feel sloppy and flat. But then you’d probably want it a little stiffer if you were using it for street or skatepark.
Just out of interest, do many people ride predominantly skateparks? I can drop in on an 8foot halfpipe, but it’s impossible to do anything after that. I’d like to run a harder gear and smooth tyre to see if I could actually get up the other side of a halfpipe without pedalling my tits off.
Has anyone considered gluing the tread from a 20 on a shaved trials tire? It would kill your weight advantage but should last a long time and you could keep re-using the casing till the sidewalls die.
Has anybody tried running this tyre on a 20" rim?:
I presume it’s designed for these cruiser/lowrider bikes that people ride round beach paths on.
http://www.unicycle.uk.com/shop/shopdisplayproduct.asp?catalogid=986
It’s 3.45" wide! I don’t know what it would be like but it’s pretty much bald with, presumably, quite a long lifespan if it’s the full thickness of a normal tyre just without tread.
I believe Spencer Hochberg tried one a few years ago, but I don’t know anymore than that.