Tires...

...You gottta have them

Buying new tires for your bike used to be easy. Once upon a time you looked at the wasted, chunked, bald “knobby” on your rim, wrote down the numbers on the sidewall and went to the parts counter at your local dealer for the same one that came with the bike when you bought it. You can still buy tires this way but you will most likely be doing yourself a disservice. Those tires that came on your bike have been chosen by the manufacturer in an effort to find a middle ground, a tire to work for all occasions, much like the suspension.

These days tire manufactures are making tires to fit very specific conditions. Whether you ride in sand dunes or hard pack clay the right tire is available to you. For instance the knob dimensions for a hard terrain tire are very different from those of a soft terrain tire. The tire designed for hard packed conditions will generally have shorter knob depth and be more supported around its base due to the extreme flex/heat caused by the hard ground condition it encounters. Tires designed with soft terrain in mind will have taller, sharper knobs designed to penetrate the dirt for traction. An intermediate tread pattern is designed to have the best of both worlds.