GamJams Reviews: Race Tires

For those of you who read my wheel review, you will not be surprised by my tire review.



Road Bike



Basically, I do not want to be changing tires the night before a race and I don't have a spare racing wheelset so I ride in races what I ride to train. I haven't raced my road bike yet this year but if I were to race, it would be on my Panaracer Stradius Pro tires. Why do I train and/or race these? I am not sponsored by a tire manufacturer so these go on my bike at my cost. They are available for $19.99 each at Performance. End of story.



TT Bike



Above applies here, I do not want to be changing tires the night before a race and I don't have a spare racing wheelset so I ride in races what I ride to train. I haven't raced my TT bike yet this year but if I were to race, it would be on the tires that are on it. Honestly, I don't know what they are. They are the ones that were on it when I bought it. Maybe I will look at them sometime to learn what they are. Probably when I need to replace.



MTB



OK, ahem, I do have a set of "racing wheels" for this bike. Not really, I have set set of training wheels with somewhat slick tires that I ride during the week. I also have set of wheels with real MTB tires that I use for races. Right now they the tires on these wheels are the front and rear specific tires from Panaracer the front-specific classic Dart and the rear-specific classic Smoke. Last year at Twisted Tire Spring Cup I had a spoke issue and was seeking assistance from one of the shop vehicles before the race. The Bike Factory of Charlottesville folks were able to fix the problem. The reason I bring this up is one of the "kids" saw the tires I was using, the Dart and Smoke, and quoted the Performance Bike buzz words in the catalogue description about how more races have been won on this set of tires than any other. I looked at him with a quizzical look at first and then told him that those words hadn't influenced me. It was the price.