I couldn’t figure out why, seemingly out-of-the-blue, my KH 36er was pulling me hard to the left on even, level ground. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the fault of the carbon rim since it had been fine up to this point without a pulling issue. The saddle was straight, the wheel was dished, properly tensioned and trued, and the tire was inflated to the usual 55 to 60 PSI. First thing I did was flip the wheel around but the left pull was still just as prominent.
Then I took everything apart and checked the frame to see if it was possibly bent or tweaked, but it was seemingly symmetrical. I had changed cranks recently from my 110 moments to 114 ventures, so I switched back to the moments but there was no change. As a last-ditch effort I switched back to the original NR tire as I have a few extras. Took it out for a test ride and the left pull was instantly gone!
Now I’m left wondering what could possibly be wrong with the Lite tire, since there is still plenty of tread left and it appears to have even wear. Btw, I had also removed the tire and flipped that around, and made sure that the bead was properly set and even. Pretty easy to tell with the carbon Rim since the beads set with a very loud pop!
So I’m thinking that possibly because the Lite version has thinner side walls, maybe that can cause uneven support? Lastly, this was the first time I’d ridden my 36er since taking it offroad for a pretty rocky Muni ride in Simi Valley. Maybe I somehow damaged the tire.
Like I told you on facebook, this tire has thin walls and Roger (and others) has had some issues with it when using a thin rim.
The price to pay for a very lighter nightride tire may be this: some rim just don’t hold it in the long term or leads to camber sensitivity (because of flexibility).
So I guess the question is whether the best option is:
a) A Nightrider Lite tyre on a wide/heavy (Stealth 2) rim, or
b) A standard Nightrider tyre on a narrow/light (carbon) rim.
I would assume that a Nightrider Lite tyre on a Stealth 2 rim would be the best option, assuming the weight works out to be about the same. You get a slightly more compliant tyre and a bit more stability from the wider rim.
Me too. I rode my original heavy Nightrider until the treads wore off (probably close to 20k km). My hub wore out too and I rebuilt with the same Stealth 2 rim and still going strong.
I’ve had the Nightrider Lite tyre on the Stealth 2 rim now for about half a year with maybe 500-1000km mostly off-road and it’s awesome!! I even ride it with really low pressure and does fine (in the road it’s then a little squirelly so I pump up to 40-60PSI on the road, but off-road I ride something aournd 15-20psi).
The one thing I overlooked is the fact that from time to time you’ll get a tire that is defective, and maybe that’s the issue. I previously ran the regular NR on my stealth 2 rim with no issues, and in fact did nine of my 10 Centuries with that setup. Someone suggested that I mount the Lite tire onto my stealth 2 rim to see if I get the same left pull, and if so it would be a confirmation of a defective tire.
So I put the lite NR back on the carbon rim since there was no pull when I had it installed on the stealth rim. This time I also noticed when I mounted the tire it went back on without the need of Tire levers.
Probably because this time I used talcum powder and also because this new tire liner isn’t as thick as the vinyl liner. Took it for a short ride and noticed there was no more left pull!
I’m guessing the tube had been forced to one side before, likely due to the ill-fitting vinyl liner, the one that comes with the stealth rim. I had to cut it down because it was too wide for this narrower carbon rim, but in doing so, it had shifted all over the place which I noticed when I first removed the lite to switch to the regular NR.
Does anyone use the Vee Tire 36er tube? Every website that carries it lists the weight of the tube at 220g or roughly 7.7 oz. I was disappointed to find that after weighing it on two different digital scales it was nearly 125g heavier than the stated weight. 12oz is more than 1/4 pound heavier than they say it is. A variance of maybe 10 to 20 grams would be acceptable, but this is just plain false advertising IMO.
There is probably a tiny asterisk on the weight and in minuscule characters written in light grey over a white background at the verrrrrryyyyy bottom of the page, it says “weight measured for the 20” version".
In addition to the Lite tire, I use a butyl Michelin A3 airstop 700x35/47 tube that weights 170 gm which is just under 6 ounces.
it needs to be stretched during the night on the rim, a bit inflated, and some baby powder before installation but works very well on my 36er.
Not doable on the carbon rim because of the narrower I.D. tried stretching a 700c tube 2 of 43 inch diameter and let sit for 48 hours and it still would not get out of the way of the tire.
The weave direction of the ply will run in the same direction when the tyre is rotated.
So if one layer of ply is bust in a left right direction, “twisting” the tyre left to right, reversing the tyre will also twist it left to right.
For example, if the threads are diagonal cross ply, or ply bias.
It looks like the heavy Nightrider isn’t available anymore, or at least not everywhere. So I found the Qu-ax King George Ultimate Tire. Does anyone have comments on that compared to the Nightrider and Nightrider Lite?
I’m especial interesting in which one I should get, KG Ultimate or NRLite?
The Nightrider Lite and King George Ultimate Tire appear to be basically the same. They are both made by Innova and the only difference is the pattern. The also have a pattern code on the side that is one digit different from each other.
The King is 44€ more and is listed to weigh 1240g to the NR lite’s 1400g. So there most be some difference. Anyone got no reviews of them? A search here doesn’t find anything on KG.
