[Twice]

This maybe somewhat of a newbie question, but I figured it may be good info for others as well.

Unfortunately, I live in an area that is mostly all paved, and parks are just paved bike paths. My tires are rated between 40 and 65 psi, so for road riding i've been very happy with the handling and turning at about 60psi.

The other day however, I took the bike over to my parents and road on some backwoods trails. Not your everyday park offroad trail, but nothing crazy. The trail was very mixed from hard pack and stumps, to mud, and even an good trail through some sand dunes.

Obviously I had to drop the pressure, but i'm wondering what is a good PSI to run at on this type of mix. I dropped it quite a bit in the sand, but as soon as I got back on hard pack it was entirely too soft. Is there a happy median for these types of conditions when it comes to pressure?

 

[Serial Midget]

In your situation I would have been at 35 to 40.

 

[-BB-]

In your situation I would have been at 35 to 40.

Yeah... 40 at the MOST.

I'd reduce the pressure as much as possible (till you start to pinch flat) and then increase it a little.

 

[Westy]

It depends on your weight riding style and tire size. 35-40 is a good rule of thumb, I run lower. Most importantly you don't want to run so low a pressure that you get pinch flats.

 

[Twice]

The reason I'm running so high for road, is i'm about 185 lbs. I ran at 50psi, and on paved, it felt sluggish, so at 60 it's got a nice rolling resistance and I'm not working so hard.

The tires are 26 x 1.95 if i'm not mistaken, nothing high end they are stock on a lower end mongoose FS.

Another quick question though, when riding softer surfaces, are you guys changing your preload at all? I had mine set pretty stiff and it felt great on the hardpack, but i'm thinking maybe letting it out a bit on the softer surfaces would help. Maybe?

 

[Acadian]

I run between 35 and 40...usually 3psi less in the front than on the rear.

 

[blue]

I run 50 in the front, 55 in the back. Then again, I love drift in corners and they're 1.85s...

 

[oldfart]

Its very hard to give pressure advice. For off road though. as low as you can go with pinch flatting but not so low that the tire folds over in hard cornering. It depends on rider weight, tire size casing stiffness, rim width, tube thickness and personal preference too. I look at how much the tire bulges under my weight on a flat smooth surface. For me at 140 plus camelback and stuff, on usually a 2.0 tire, 30 front 35 rear. If its a really rocky I'll bump it up 5 psi particularly racing when speeds are faster and care is less. Go for a slight bulge under your weight and the same amount of bulge front and rear.

 

[JSB]

I've been running my pressure between 30 and 35. With that said I got a pinch flat last week.

 

[caboverpete]

I weight about 152 and run 45 front and rear in the mountains of Southwest Virginia with not much problem. I usually end up riding a mix of dirt service roads and technically (ie rooty and rocky) singletrack and so far that pressure has worked out great.