I’m resurrecting an old thread vs starting a new one.
Last fall, I put 2.6” tires on my MTB for a bikepacking trip to get a little more float in the sandy sections of the route. I normally ride 2.3-2.4” tires
Being lazy, I left the 2.6” tires on over the winter, and have started my spring trail riding with these bigger tires. I was planning on swapping them out for my smaller tires for a race I’m planning to do later this spring - but after my ride yesterday, I’m thinking of keeping the bigger tires on the bike.
Yesterday, I rode the lunch loops trails in Grand Junction, Colorado. These are desert-style trails - rocky, sandy and technical, with very few smooth sections.
I had the tire pressure at 18 and 17 psi respectively, front and rear, about 2-3 psi lower than my normal sized tires.
I noticed a difference with these tires - not huge, but they did seem to reduce trail chatter, and seemed to have a little better grip vs the smaller tires.
Then I looked at Strava to find a segment where I know each time I rode it I was probably riding as fast as possible - a 0.6 mile fun downhill technical section.
Results below - showing my 2 rides yesterday were the fastest of 6. This is definitely not a scientific study for a bunch of reasons, but the times, combined with my subjective feel of the tires above makes me wonder if these bigger tires are faster on a technical course like this.
Any one have similar experience comparing different tire sizes on MTB? Any conclusions or preferences?
Note: the 2.6” tires are both Bontrager XR4
I usually ride a 2.4” XR4 on front, and a beefier (more puncture resistant) tire on the rear, most recently a 2.4” Schwalbe Wicked Will