I put a post in the reviews section regarding this tire, and it hasn’t seen much action. It might be that there is really no information about this tire. I would be getting it in the 700x50c/28x2.0 size for my 29’er.
Has anyone used this tire, or seen it in person? Do you think it would be a good uni tire?
Might also be that the reviews section is for reviews, not requests [2cents]
Putting more info about what you want to get out of a tire would help on feedback.
When you ask how good a tire is, there are so many millions of answers that people can throw at you. Every tire has its purpose.
Also keep in mind that this tire is clearly not made for serious muni, isn’t huge volume, and isn’t a high end road tire, so it doesn’t really hit any of the major unicyclist groups, this means that the odds of someone trying it on a unicycle are pretty slim, and that someone on the forums has tried it would be even more slim.
I’m looking at it as a road tire. I don’t like the way the Big Apple handles road crown; although, I’m sure that the narrower version is much better than the one I have. I know it’s a lower level tire, but I also think that some cheaper tires have stiffer sidewalls, and harder rubber compounds. These factors combined with a suitable profile could produce a pretty nice uni tire without being terribly expensive.
Based on the pictures, it looks like a “do a bit of everything” tire. If that’s the case, it’s probably lousy at all of it. That is my experience with do-it-all cycling stuff. I’d go for the Big Apple 2.0".
Cheaper tire doesn’t always equal stiffer sidewall and harder rubber. Quite often it is usually one or the other, and sometimes neither at all, I would avoid ordering experimental tires online unless you can read a lot of reviews on them and see what other tires they compare them to.
I know that there are no generalizations regarding tire quality and price. That is why I was asking on the forum. I plan on getting the 2.0 Big Apple, but I thought this was interesting. I might look around at the LBS’s and see if anyone has this tire in stock. I don’t want to get it based on a photo, but If it looks half decent in person I might give it a go.
Then again, randomly trying tires out is sweet, cause who else is going to do it? Trying a random tire isnt all that bad either cause his preference may be different and he’ll love this tire.
Im actually kind of surprised at the lack of tire knowledge we have. Seems pretty boxed in to 'We use these tires for this style, those for this style, and etc…"
He’s right. Whereas in the past, we were limited to what was available for our rim sizes, but now with 700c there are tons of choices, depending on the type of riding you want to do.
Back in the day, there weren’t that many 24 x 1.75 tires, and the unicycle ones were often the best available. For 20" there were a lot more choices, but not for Freestyle. Again it was limited to a pretty small number of really good-handling, long-wearing and non-marking tires. In the 26" size we were wide open for a little while there, but then 24 x 3" became the popular size and we were again back to a limited market of tires…
Problem with that is that most reviews are by cyclists (2 wheeled), which have virtually no relevance to how the tyre works on a unicycle.
And unicyclist reviews of tyres tend to be about that small numbers of tyres that are currently used on 29-ers and available from unicyclist.com.
Personally, I’m finding that none of that group are ideal for my riding- I’m not needing an extreme muni tyre (the WTB stout is too heavy for anything other than muni and is not good for the road hills local to me), or a ‘high-end’ road tyre.
All I need is a tyre with good tracking, not overly affected by road-crown, light (sub 700 grams) for hill climbs and, ideally, not totally slick so it can be used for mild off-road without being hopeless when it’sa bit wet.
For me, that leaves me using the Kenda Klaw 29x2.1- though it’s not as good at tracking as I’d like
see-
( 29-ers and the smaller tire advantage) for details
So, i’m very glad that some unicyclists do try out ‘unknown (in the uni world)’ 29-er tyres- after all, any of the current 29-er tyres that are well-respected, were once tried out as an experiment and found to ride well.
This is pretty much what I was thinking. I know that we can’t know how it handles road crown until it’s on a unicycle. I was hoping that someone ventured into this territory on this forum, but apparently that is not the case. I haven’t found one at a bike shop yet, but I might have to go around rather than call. It could be on a bike on the floor, and not in stock as a replacement. If I can see one and get a better feel for what it is I may try it out, and good or bad I will write a review.