New tire setup for Fury

Saturday, 30 April 2016

I finally converted my Trek Fuel/EX mountain bike to tubeless tires. I chose two different tires for their response: a Continental Trail King on the front, a Maxxis Minion DHF on the rear. I bought both from Competitive Cyclist, and I called Mike Dartt at http://mikesbiketruck.com/ for his at-your-door service to do the conversion. (Supposedly the conversion can be pretty easy to do, but my arthritic wrists say otherwise, even for getting a well-stretched tire onto my rims.)

For the front tire, I expect confident cornering grip and enough stability to track the riding line correctly. A reinforced sidewall can improve support for riding on rocky terrain, although too stiff a sidewall can lessen feel and suppleness from the ride. The correct tire pressure and suspension set-up play their parts in the front-end performance as speed increases on rougher, drier tracks. Finally, well-balanced weight distribution and correctly-tuned bar height aid the grip. Reviews lead me to believe that the Continental Trail King meets these needs.

On the back tire, some riders advise a slightly narrower tire with a lower profile center tread or a closely spaced tread pattern. These attributes should result in a faster rolling wheel on dry and rocky ground. Since I'm still new at riding the hills, I chose a wider tire (2.4 inches) and a fairly open tread pattern, to help slow the roll. Cornering tread is still important, and I want plenty of traction in the turns. So I followed reviews to choose the Maxxis Minion DHF that is 0.1 inch wider than my front tire.

References

Dry trail riding advice.
Different needs for front and rear tires.
Continental Trail King.
Maxxis Minion DHF.
Competitive Cyclist.

This morning I took Fury out for some trial on the roads, going to the Farmers' Market and on a ride with Chuck over his favorite route. The front tire had lost some pressure overnight, and it had a lot of rolling resistance for the ride to the market. I pumped it up to 35 pounds before I rode with Chuck, and it rode really well at that pressure. I might reduce the pressure to 25 pounds when I hit the trails.

Ride conditions
Temperature: 75°F at 08:30,  79°F at 12:40
Precipitation: none
Winds: calm to 5 early, then about 15 mph with gusts from the north and west
Clothing: Casual MTB shorts, shortsleeve tee, open-finger gloves
Bike: Trek Fuel/EX mountain bike
Time: 23:12 for 4.0 miles, 1:08:12 for 8.7 miles
Heart rate: 111 and 89 bpm HRave, 140 and 128 bpm HRmax Playbacks of the rides: Farmers' Market, With Chuck