I need to buy a new tire for my 20" Avenir, but I have some questions.
BMX tires keep popping up. Are they the same thing?
Would a Kenda 20" for Schwin S-7 work?
On my tire it says (47-406) 20"x1.75"
Could someone tell me some online stores I could check out?
Thanks!
Yup, you want the BMX tire. Any 20" tire with decimal marking (20x1.75, 20x2.1 etc) and/or the ISO code of XX-406 will fit on your rim.
You don’t want a Schwin S-7 tire or fractional tire (20x1-3/4) since they are slightly different and will not fit.
20" tires are extremely common, why not just buy one locally?
“SHIPMEFREE” code for free shipping until the end of the month.
Note that it’s a little bit wider than the stock tire. That change was a big improvement on my Avenir.
And yes, that’s the bmx size. CST Cyclops in 20 x 1.95" is another nice tire at a nice price. (About the same after shipping from Amazon marketplace.)
That ought to work, but maybe depending on where you are local choices can be inappropriate for a unicycle (ie, chopper tires, skinny knobbies) and/or way overpriced. That’s often been my experience.
How would a wider tire affect the ride? Does it give you more stability?
Is Kenda a good brand? I just need something for gravelly street riding.
Thanks!
As long as you aren’t going too wide for your rim (I wouldn’t go more than double your rim width) a wider tire can add a bit of stability, but what is more noticeable is it’s ability to absorb more shock when landing, hitting lumps, cracks, etc.
Kenda makes good budget tires. Relatively tough and long lasting for a good price. What you don’t get is the subtle sidewalls and extra-grippy rubber of the premium brands. I have a white Kenda Kikzumbut tire on my 20" and feel it’s an excellent general use tire.
Another great budget conscious tire brand to look at is CST. I have heard good things about the cyclops.
Ironically the more expensive tires tend to wear out faster due to their stickier rubber compound.
That’s why I did it on my Avenir. The stock (Duro) tire was fine, but I was practicing with it on my brick patio and on my driveway, which has bumps and cracks. A wider tire meant I could run lower pressure, so that stuff didn’t disturb the unicycle as much as I it rolled over it.
I think the 1.95" wide tire sits on the Avenir rim very nicely. The rim is somewhere in the 1.25-1.375" range.
I just noticed btw that the tire I linked to above is out of stock. Sorry to have missed that. Unicycle.com does list whitewall and all-white versions of it in stock.
Another one that looks reasonable is the Kenda Kontact. I stuck one of those in an online shopping cart a while back to pad out an order where I was already going to pay shipping. I haven’t used it yet but it’s also 1.95" wide and will probably go on my Avenir when the current tire wears out. It comes in fun colors. Mine’s yellow.