The tire saga continues. It’s been a while since I’ve had some tire issues, mostly because I haven’t really been trying anything new, just sticking with what I know to work. That all changed in the last couple weeks.

I got a pair of “small block 8s”:http://www.kendausa.com/bicycle/JohnTomac.html from somebody about a month back. They were completely new (he switched to a 29er), and I had heard that they were a nice fast rolling tire, so I mounted them up for the KMC.

I’m not a HUGE fan of kenda tires, in general, but the “Nevegal”:http://www.kendausa.com/bicycle/JohnTomac.html is a really nice tire, so I figured I would give another “Tomac Signature Series” tire a go.

Well, now that I’ve ridden them for a few weeks, I can say with a perfectly straight face that unless I’m planning on doing a road ride on my mountain bike, I will never use these tires again. In fact, if it wasn’t really bad for me and anyone else around, I would jump at the opportunity to rip these off my bike, and set the on fire in my driveway.

Yeah, I liked them that much.

It all started with the KMC. I put down the first 45 miles of forest roads without a problem, and felt like the tires were a good choice up to that point. Then I hit the singletrack. Within a mile of getting on the singletrack, the rear tire was pissing out “Stan’s”:http://www.notubes.com/product_info.php/cPath/21_60/products_id/44 all over the place with no hope of sealing. I put a tube in, and continued on.

I didn’t have any problems during Bryce’s race with flats, but I did note that although it is a fast tire, and corners pretty well for what it is, the ability to climb and descend (or slow down quickly) was not at the top of the design consideration list for “Johnny T”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tomac.

A couple more rides on the tires with too much skidding and not enough stopping, and it all hit the fan monday night on my after-work ride. A quick couple hours out on the bike turned into an hour of riding followed by intermittent stretches of changing flats and cursing.The ride culminated with a double flat on Jedi (after I used my 2 tubes) and a hike down to schultz road and halfway back to the parking lot before thumbing a ride home.

4 flats, one ride.

There are these things called “sidewalls” on tires. They seemed to have forgotten them on the Small Block 8s.

To add insult to injury, I ordered a set of the “cyclocross small block 8s”:http://www.kendausa.com/bicycle/road.html for the fixie a little while back, and I’ve had to change 3 tires on that since I threw them on. I failed to mention it a little while back, but during my “cruise up waterline”:http://www.handlebarsandwich.com/06/10/2008/motivation-through-pain/ on the fixie, I double flatted the bike on the way down and had to use 1 cyclocross tube and 1 mountain tube to get home.

Did you know you can fit a 26×2.1 tube into a 700×32 tire? Hint: you have to stretch it and then fold it in half.

1 more flat on my commute home from work on the urban trail (it was a pinch also) and I’m starting to see a trend with these tires.

So, I’m back to the old standbys for the tires. I threw some used tires on the bike for the next few days, but I put in an order for a “Sturdy”:http://www.geax.com/vedit/pagina.asp~pagina~1924 for the rear and an “Ignitor”:http://www.maxxis.com/products/bicycle/product_detail.asp?id=305 for the front.

Sorry John, I won’t be adding to the “buy another big hat”:http://www.motonews.com/tfs/buddy.jpg fund with this tire purchase.