New Bike Tires

This morning I put another 8.52 miles on my old Trek 820, along Forbidden Drive in Fairmount Park. Since I'm doing my riding on paved trails or packed gravel, I've been thinking about either replacing the knobby tires on the bike with something with less rolling resistance, or even getting a second set of wheels with faster rolling tires.

This afternoon I took a drive up to Indian Valley Bikeworks in Harleysville. At their recommendation I bought a pair of 26" x 1.5" Bontrager H2 semi-slick tires and suitable tubes.

I was able to remove the old rubber with one tire lever, and the new tires and tubes went on easily. They are rated for 60 to 90 PSI. I have them pumped up to about 65 PSI, to provide some cushioning.

In my old cycling days I sometimes took my 1986 Nishiki road bike with slick 700c x 25 tires at 100 PSI down to Forbidden Drive and as long as I was careful, didn't run into problems. I should be OK with the new Bontragers, which are a lot beefier. Of course, I'll need to be more careful than with the knobby MTB tires, but converting the Trek into a pseudo-hybrid with these tires should suit my current riding well.

I'm still tempted to get a spare wheel set and mount the knobbies on it, though.