Tyre cutting help please
- Thread starter weedkilla
- Start date
Most heated tire cutting / grooving tools are too large to work well on bicycle tires. I've found that a soldering iron with a X-acto blade works well, but it's really only slightly better than a regular X-acto knife.
sawz-all
olfa ultramax black boxcutter blades are retardedly sharp, slicing & dicing knobs with little effort. impressive:
plus, you can use them for like, cutting boxes and stuff.
whist on the topic - i just realized you can extend the grippy life of a dhf by trimming the braking block surfaces of the center knobs (they get rounded off fairly rapidly) into nice sharp edges with said awesome blade and a couple minutes. nicely opens up the tread a bit.
plus, you can use them for like, cutting boxes and stuff.
whist on the topic - i just realized you can extend the grippy life of a dhf by trimming the braking block surfaces of the center knobs (they get rounded off fairly rapidly) into nice sharp edges with said awesome blade and a couple minutes. nicely opens up the tread a bit.
I just did the same thing to the climbing edges with the one on the back of my trail bike. I wish maxxis made one of their 'dh' treads with a bit of a climbing edge.
I either use brand new scalpel sharp blades like those, end cutters, or this.
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Channel Lock end cutters and pair of gloves for shorting or trimming knobs. FISKARS makea a set of gold bladed sharp shears that you can find at Home Depot for making sipe cuts.
These two tools should be all you'd ever need.
These two tools should be all you'd ever need.
Might be.
Looks pretty cool. The blade isn't going to be as sharp as the one I have with replaceable cutters but maybe that one gets hot enough that it doesn't matter.
Looks pretty cool. The blade isn't going to be as sharp as the one I have with replaceable cutters but maybe that one gets hot enough that it doesn't matter.
i agree. was going to do the same; tech climbing not so good with ramped knobs.
why would one 'cut' a tire? please explain to the tard.
Usually to lower rolling resistance while still keeping the positive properties of a tire.
For example in wet conditions most racers will run a cut down mud spike tire because they need something to penetrate mud and not get clogged up (which mud tires do really well) but they also need a fast rolling tire (which mud tires don't do really well). So shortening the spikes still allows the tire to penetrate the ground and grip but it also lowers the rolling resistance of the tire.
You can also make a bunch of notches and groves in the knobs of a tire to change how a tire grips in different situations or as they guys above are talking about, to freshen up a chewed out tire.
For example in wet conditions most racers will run a cut down mud spike tire because they need something to penetrate mud and not get clogged up (which mud tires do really well) but they also need a fast rolling tire (which mud tires don't do really well). So shortening the spikes still allows the tire to penetrate the ground and grip but it also lowers the rolling resistance of the tire.
You can also make a bunch of notches and groves in the knobs of a tire to change how a tire grips in different situations or as they guys above are talking about, to freshen up a chewed out tire.
hmmm, thanks for splanin that to me. thats pretty neat.
although id be too anal to try that out. i feel like id cut some knobs shorter than others.. that would be a pretty interesting tire, no?
although id be too anal to try that out. i feel like id cut some knobs shorter than others.. that would be a pretty interesting tire, no?
that's way too long of an answer
Try this: nevegals exist
See?
Cutting tires sucks peepee. It's certainly nothing to aspire to. It's more like just a necessary reaction to shltty tire designs that clog up the marketing budget of too many companies who don't tweak solid layouts and instead try to keep reinventing the wheel.
my cutting experience is limited (only some wetscreams) but i just use a pair of fisker snips from home depot, work great for me...
This guy is spot on. Watched a buddy using end cutters and Fiskars to carve up tires in half the time of a melting razor stick.
Those won't work too well for flattening edges on the sides of knobs will they?
I have a hard time picturing scissors getting flat enough along the casing.
I have a hard time picturing scissors getting flat enough along the casing.
i dunno, i dont get that artistic, just wanted some semi spikes.
cutting tires is a good way to turn a ****ty tire into a usable tire.
http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn135/mrbgdkmn/ectiretips.jpg
http://forums.mtbr.com/turner/convert-your-kenda-nevegal-zero-hero-503533.html
Odd that both of those are kenda tires...
But supposedly the excavator was actually designed by EC to be cut appropriate to conditions. I finally got one to play with, but I paid for minions so I don't know if I'll ever care enough.
Which just seems absurd to me.
Why you would set yourself up to cut tires I have no idea. I'd much much much rather just buy two different tires that are just designed well from the get go.
I get the concept (adapt tires to terrain that's specifically around you). I feel like there's a fair difference in terrain between parks out here, and cutting a tire just a little differently could net an advantage.
I agree with you though, to achieve that advantage, why not just get two different tires?
Of course, these are Kendas, and Kendas are...different.
I agree with you though, to achieve that advantage, why not just get two different tires?
Of course, these are Kendas, and Kendas are...different.
when riding on the internet, there's always a better way
Well yeah.......but then after you cut it you have a terrain specific tire anyway. At least as the theory goes. That tire could have just been designed way better from the outset that would need zero modifications to work well on all those surfaces he's making cuts for.
Kenda makes a lot of shltty tires for sure but their biggest crime is discontinuing the ones they've made that actually worked well (IE: telonix for dust, Mocos for loose and moderately wet, BBGs for anything dry). The mocos needed some stiffer centerknobs that didn't roll over. Rather than fix it, they axed it. The BBGs would be friggin awesome in a 2.4-2.5 DH casing but they max out at 2.3. And they never made any of those in a decent sized UST for trailbikes. Those telonix tires handled non-gummy mud and moondust like a champ.......but no.......we'll just keep making more and more nevegals.
Oh but hey, here's this great 'cut ready' tire that sucks out of the box. Have fun, breath the fumes off that tire knife!
People LOVE nevegals. Not DH racers mind you, but those things seem to be ubiquitous...
I haven't tried any of the tires you mentioned, but I've had a couple of Nevegals, a blue groove (among the worst tires I've used alongside the gazzalodi jr) and a couple of k-rads which pinch flatted when you saw a curb. Oh, I guess I had some Karmas too.
I haven't tried any of the tires you mentioned, but I've had a couple of Nevegals, a blue groove (among the worst tires I've used alongside the gazzalodi jr) and a couple of k-rads which pinch flatted when you saw a curb. Oh, I guess I had some Karmas too.
k-rads work well once you get them to like 100psi
i call them the "never jelly"
I don't know. Even guys I know who used to buy those things for their trail bikes usually just had as their highest praise "these bltches is cheap yo!"
They're actually not bad if you just cut off all the 'transition' knobs. I've needed a tire on a road trip and had to go that route once or twice. But then again, there's that 'cut ready' mentality.
You realize k-rads are dirtjump tires that should never drop below 55psi right?
With where you live I don't think I'd bother with BBGs because they do suck in the mud. As far as the other two.......TOO BAD. Kenda doesn't even make them any more.
They got this sick new trail bike tire called the honey badger though. It looks revolutionary.
Because it has a funny name see?
truthI don't know. Even guys I know who used to buy those things for their trail bikes usually just had as their highest praise "these bltches is cheap yo!"
Now I actually pay real money for a good front tire.
Kenda needs to hire someone that actually rides trail bikes on something other than pavement smooth xc trails.
They have some good rubber, things like Ironcap (1.5 ply construction) some decent starting points for thread patterns. They just seem to cock up the combination of the ingredients for a great tire.
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eh, I had a k-rad and a hookworm and the krad wasn't up to the task...but it probably could have been remedied by infinity air pressure.
as for people and the nevy, yeah I've heard cutting the transition knobs is the way to go, I have a set of 650b nevys that I'm going to try and cut to get them to suck less, but that bike doesn't go as fast as the dh sled so I haven't had to worry about it. It's mostly MTBR-types that swear by those tires...and they come stock on a lot of setups.
Still though...kenda's batting average ain't so hot right now.
as for people and the nevy, yeah I've heard cutting the transition knobs is the way to go, I have a set of 650b nevys that I'm going to try and cut to get them to suck less, but that bike doesn't go as fast as the dh sled so I haven't had to worry about it. It's mostly MTBR-types that swear by those tires...and they come stock on a lot of setups.
Still though...kenda's batting average ain't so hot right now.
i have a k rad in the rear on my dj (i think 65psi), works good on hard pack single track, honestly grips better than i expected too.
and thanks for the visual aid sandwich!
Did that k-rad sit between two fork legs that said "monster" on them hovering above a stair gap?
Be honest.
Pretty true. But it's mostly because people never bought the few genuinely good tires they've made because they didn't read about them on mtbr.......and then they quit making them. Like shirk said: they just hover there right at 'almost' It's kind of infuriating.
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rumor has it that the last time kenda ordered those tires from the factory in china they ordered 100,000.00 but the factory didn't know what a decimal point was and accidentally made 10,000,000. kenda is practically giving them away as OEM
never mistake a kenda joke for factual information.
avalanche :guilty:
My information comes from actually purchasing tires at the OEM level for automotive production and dealing with the engineers.
The process involves "How do we get your great looking tire x at price y?" The answer usually involves "We use the ****ty rubber and scraps off the floor."