Long(est)-lasting tires available in 2.2-2.4""

Animal MTTs, lasted me 2 years and they're still usable. I only changed from them because I wanted to switch things up a little. Barely ever got punctures(that's a really big thing where I am, everywhere is littered with glass and the council do nothing to clean anywhere outside the city square) and they gripped better than any other tyre I've had. I'll probably be going back to them when my current KHE tyres are worn out.

dude this is too long to read so im just going off the title and saying my animal t1 tires lasted me the longest but didnt feel all that great so i'd give best long lasting and great feeling tire to donnasqueaks

Shadow valors hands down! They come in 2.20 and 2.40

I've never had any experience with animal tires, so I wouldn't know what your best bet would be.

Thanks for this post because I'm feeling / looking for the exact same thing . We don't have as many options here which sucks , and I'm broke as fuck too currently so ya I need a good purchase .

Also Josh why did the T1's feel bad ? Were you riding them above 80 PSI ? Because they're recommended to be run 80-110 otherwise they'll feel mushy . I want a pair myself , can't make a decision though .

p1p1092 wrote:

Animal MTTs, lasted me 2 years and they're still usable. I only changed from them because I wanted to switch things up a ...more

p1p1092 wrote:

Animal MTTs, lasted me 2 years and they're still usable. I only changed from them because I wanted to switch things up a little. Barely ever got punctures(that's a really big thing where I am, everywhere is littered with glass and the council do nothing to clean anywhere outside the city square) and they gripped better than any other tyre I've had. I'll probably be going back to them when my current KHE tyres are worn out.

...more

That's funny, I'd seen those and thought they looked very cool aesthetically (at the time, am now a huge fan of slicks and the slicker-the-better, aesthetically) but at first I thought they'd last because of how thick that rubber was, but in reality the rubber is making up a smaller % of the contact surface so there's *less* rubber...I guess that, if I were to have an MTT, I'd sooner they just 'melted-down' those chunky letter-treads into a thick, flat slick! For if they *do* last a long time, I'd imagine it's merely a function of the extra rubber, and I'd sooner take a large contact-patch with the concrete (in the form of a slick) than a tire that's got maybe 80% as much contact patch at any time, but is merely taller (taller, relative to width, also just makes tires look less thick, another aesthetic down-vote)

Based on reading your text, the decreased contact-area is more-than made up for by the grip the grooving provides, I don't doubt that but it just wasn't my intuition (and I can understand how such a taller tire would help with avoiding puncture flats), however 2yrs on *any* set of tires makes me wonder just how much you're riding and how much abuse you're putting them through (I'd love if there were a vote function here, I wonder how long the average daily-rider would say a pair of tires lasts them - anyone's wild guesses at this would be appreciated, I'd guess ~6mo is my average but would have to dig through pics' dates to discern)

joshcooldude wrote:

dude this is too long to read so im just going off the title and saying my animal t1 tires lasted me the longest but didnt ...more

joshcooldude wrote:

dude this is too long to read so im just going off the title and saying my animal t1 tires lasted me the longest but didnt feel all that great so i'd give best long lasting and great feeling tire to donnasqueaks

...more

apologies, brevity isn't natural to me and I forget to go back and edit/shorten :/

The T1's got a lot of love in another tire thread I'd made, and when comparing their weight to other similar tires they're significantly heavier, I'd been interested to know if that translated (roughly linearly) to increased longevity (ie stronger and/or thicker rubber outer of the tire), or merely things like thicker bead, thicker sidewalls etc. Seems a large amount of that extra weight *is* in the outer rubber! Interesting you mention the donnasqueaks, those are almost the same exact weight iirc, like within an ounce or so but both are at the high-end of weights for 2.4"'s

DanTheBikerMan wrote:

Shadow valors hands down! They come in 2.20 and 2.40

I've never had any experience with animal tires, so I wouldn't know what ...more

DanTheBikerMan wrote:

Shadow valors hands down! They come in 2.20 and 2.40

I've never had any experience with animal tires, so I wouldn't know what your best bet would be.

...more

What other tires can you compare them to? I'd have to double-check but I think those had an impressively light weight (like duo's, for instance DUO HSL's in 2.4, as a set, would save me almost a pound - a pound of rolling-weight at the outer-edge of the wheel, the worst spot on the entire bike for extra weight - if I swapped to those from my hawks...but my last set of duo's, 2.35x2.25's, wore incredibly fast IMO)

I'd be interested what tires you can compare the valors to, also a rough idea of your riding habits (ie are you a lightweight kid riding in an indoor park, or normal-larger and riding street?)

Brayden_Buckingham wrote:

Thanks for this post because I'm feeling / looking for the exact same thing . We don't have as many options here which sucks , ...more

Brayden_Buckingham wrote:

Thanks for this post because I'm feeling / looking for the exact same thing . We don't have as many options here which sucks , and I'm broke as fuck too currently so ya I need a good purchase .

Also Josh why did the T1's feel bad ? Were you riding them above 80 PSI ? Because they're recommended to be run 80-110 otherwise they'll feel mushy . I want a pair myself , can't make a decision though .

...more

Minimum PSI being problematic due to tire selection?! VERY glad you brought that up, it's something I've wondered and always forget to ask!

Sometimes tires have 'minimum psi', which I never understood - max-psi makes sense, but minimum? My current tires will take 110 pounds of air, but do not list a minimum, I ride them anywhere from ~48-58psi (based on my likely-inaccurate gauge) and 'mushy' is just natural at that weight of pressure, but the way you write that makes me wonder if other tires don't behave the same, like I would never think of riding 50psi in my 'max 110psi' hawks as using them improperly, they feel great that way - further, I find lots and lots of pros ride in the 50psi range, so am def wondering if/how 'min psi' comes into this game! I'm getting my next set with no intention of riding at a higher pressure, whether I chose t1's or whatever, so if I was walking into a problem that's something I really wanna know because I'd be pissed if I *had* to ride 70+ again!! (I used to ride heavy, heavy tires, I liked the stiffness - it took a toll on my wrists over the years, and when going soft after reading so many pro bike-checks mentioning 50-60psi, and finding I was wayy more capable on my bike once I got used to that pressure, I'd never want to go back! I only pump to close-to-60 when I'm going to be covering distance, otherwise it's right under 50 up front, mid-50's in the back!


(upon writing that, I'm wondering if I shouldn't be giving special consideration to the 'p-lyte' odyssey tires, as my understanding of them is that it's the same rubber outer, but a weaker sidewall that limits you to like 60psi, which would be IDEAL for me since i'd save that weight and still have a long-lasting tire - presuming hawks are amongst the longest-lasting, I've found them pretty well-wearing so far!)

Animal glh. I had a set last me 13 months of riding almost everyday and i almost never get flats with them. Good all round grip. I ran a mtt for a few months and it was ok but not as good as the glh, i didn't like the lower psi. Never ran it till it wore out so idk how long it would have lasted.

When is it time to replace a tire? As a kid I never changed tires on any of my bikes, but now that I've gotten into BMX and have been riding every single day for months, I realize I don't know when to change my tires. Other than the loss of tread and obvious holes is there anything else I should look for to know when a tire is done for.

Brayden_Buckingham wrote:

Thanks for this post because I'm feeling / looking for the exact same thing . We don't have as many options here which sucks , ...more

Brayden_Buckingham wrote:

Thanks for this post because I'm feeling / looking for the exact same thing . We don't have as many options here which sucks , and I'm broke as fuck too currently so ya I need a good purchase .

Also Josh why did the T1's feel bad ? Were you riding them above 80 PSI ? Because they're recommended to be run 80-110 otherwise they'll feel mushy . I want a pair myself , can't make a decision though .

...more

they were just "tires" to me yea they lasted 4 months without showing a single sign of wear and i'll probably have them as spares forever but there was nothing special about them. the grip is just ok, they dont roll that fast (i had the 2.2 version), they feel like bricks, and they get punctures mad easily even through their dual compound tread, and their only plus to me is they last forever. my 2.3 fuegos and 2.4 donnasqueaks both rolled 10000x faster, carved much better, and felt a lot lighter than the t'1s. Maybe it was the amount of air required to make them actually ride but that amount of rotational weight does not feel good

Sheldon. wrote:

When is it time to replace a tire? As a kid I never changed tires on any of my bikes, but now that I've gotten into BMX and ...more

Sheldon. wrote:

When is it time to replace a tire? As a kid I never changed tires on any of my bikes, but now that I've gotten into BMX and have been riding every single day for months, I realize I don't know when to change my tires. Other than the loss of tread and obvious holes is there anything else I should look for to know when a tire is done for.

...more

I literally wait for a tire to be un-rideable before I replace it, I'll be waiting for one of my tires (most likely my rear one) to blow out before I replace it.

I second the Animal GLH tires.

p1p1092 wrote:

Animal MTTs, lasted me 2 years and they're still usable. I only changed from them because I wanted to switch things up a ...more

p1p1092 wrote:

Animal MTTs, lasted me 2 years and they're still usable. I only changed from them because I wanted to switch things up a little. Barely ever got punctures(that's a really big thing where I am, everywhere is littered with glass and the council do nothing to clean anywhere outside the city square) and they gripped better than any other tyre I've had. I'll probably be going back to them when my current KHE tyres are worn out.

...more

adfkje wrote:

That's funny, I'd seen those and thought they looked very cool aesthetically (at the time, am now a huge fan of slicks and the ...more

adfkje wrote:

That's funny, I'd seen those and thought they looked very cool aesthetically (at the time, am now a huge fan of slicks and the slicker-the-better, aesthetically) but at first I thought they'd last because of how thick that rubber was, but in reality the rubber is making up a smaller % of the contact surface so there's *less* rubber...I guess that, if I were to have an MTT, I'd sooner they just 'melted-down' those chunky letter-treads into a thick, flat slick! For if they *do* last a long time, I'd imagine it's merely a function of the extra rubber, and I'd sooner take a large contact-patch with the concrete (in the form of a slick) than a tire that's got maybe 80% as much contact patch at any time, but is merely taller (taller, relative to width, also just makes tires look less thick, another aesthetic down-vote)

Based on reading your text, the decreased contact-area is more-than made up for by the grip the grooving provides, I don't doubt that but it just wasn't my intuition (and I can understand how such a taller tire would help with avoiding puncture flats), however 2yrs on *any* set of tires makes me wonder just how much you're riding and how much abuse you're putting them through (I'd love if there were a vote function here, I wonder how long the average daily-rider would say a pair of tires lasts them - anyone's wild guesses at this would be appreciated, I'd guess ~6mo is my average but would have to dig through pics' dates to discern)

...more

Look again, the center of the tread is very similar to a slick. There are lines across the center which help them grab onto dirt and the sheer amount of contact area makes them grip just as well as(and, in some case better than) slick tyres on smooth concrete. The side treads grip far better when turning than any other tyre I've had with perhaps the exception of Volume Vaders. The sides have a lot of tread sticking out so they'll last through far more grinding, you're far less likely to wear through the sidewalls.
Some time ago, a friend sent me this:

. Those are MTTs, all of that landing on sharp corners and landing sideways would have most other BMX tyres blow out in a day. As far as I'm aware, this guy is still on the same set he's had for over 2 years!

I ride every day and when I was running them I was doing a 10 mile round trip per day just going to college! That's not including any riding before college, during the breaks and for the rest of the evening once college finished for the day. I'm brakeless and the route I usually took had a lot of downhills followed immediately by traffic lights and/or sharp corners so, I spent quite a considerable amount of time with my foot in the rear tyre. Around that time I also learned to fakie slider and spent a lot of time just trying to see if I could slider across the town square, down tarmac hills and everything in between. I still have them lying around somewhere, not much tread left but they'd certainly last 2-3 months.

Animal GHL or Fit FAF 2.4

Not thread jacking but are Demolition moments actually that prone to rip / get flats . They're light as fuck and cheaper than other tires here , but I don't want to deal with bad durability or flats

Brayden_Buckingham wrote:

Not thread jacking but are Demolition moments actually that prone to rip / get flats . They're light as fuck and cheaper than ...more

Brayden_Buckingham wrote:

Not thread jacking but are Demolition moments actually that prone to rip / get flats . They're light as fuck and cheaper than other tires here , but I don't want to deal with bad durability or flats

...more

In my experience, yes.

I had a set of Momentums for about 4 weeks, never got a flat but one day a small bit of glass, maybe 1/8" across, cut an inch wide slit in the tyre. Once the hole was there, it just ripped. Needless to say, I changed to another set of tyres immediately. My brother ended up using the one that didn't rip for 4 or 5 months and didn't have a single problem with it. I have heard similar stories from others as well, Momentums are quite touch and go. Some will last quite a while with no problems but a lot of others fail immediately.