There are essentially two sorts of tyre for bicycles, well-known in different mountain bike tires reviews as ‘clincher’ and ‘tubular’. We’ll get the tubular ones out of the way first because materially you won’t come across them very often. Tubular tires don’t have beads around the edge but are instead sewn together around an inner tube. You shouldn?t use a tubular tyre on just any old rim, you must use a special one and the tyre is held onto the rim using glue. Some riders consider tubulars to have some advantage over clinchers, such as less weight, more comfort and better grip but modern technology has seen the clincher tyre catch up.
The main flaws of tubular mtb tires are the fact that if you get a puncture you need to replace the whole tyre meaning you need to carry a spare. The biggest drawback though is the need to glue the tyre to the rim . The glue needs to dry for several hours. The above also means that if you are racing and get a puncture using tubulars then you are efficaciously out of the race as you will not be able to corner at speed etc until the glue is dry. That is unless you have a support crew following you with a reserve rim and tyre ready to go.
You can find clincher sort of tyres on almost all rims nowadays and they are the most familiar to you. Instead of wrapping absolutely around the interior of tube, the clincher is U-shaped when you cut it in half. The edges of the tire are held in place against the edge of the rim by the pressure of air inside it. This makes it much more easier to repair as you don’t need any glue to keep it in place.
The clincher mountain bike tires are made up of materially three parts , the bead, the fabric and the rubber. The bead is usually a sturdy steel wire which makes up the tire’s edge and holds it to the rim. Some beads use more up-to-date lightweight materials such as Kevlar which wipes out one of the advantages some riders consider that the tubular has. The fabric is what gives a tire its shape and makes up the tire?s profile, joining the two beads together. It is usually made of nylon cord and is put down in layers with each subsequent layer being placed perpendicular to the next rather than using a firm interweaving process. Tires come with different performance capabilities some of which are defined by the tire?s TPI. This marks the number of Threads Per Inch. A higher quantity points a tire with a thinner and more flexible fabric. Thin walled tires tend to perform better due to less rolling resistance and a lighter weight but they are more easily injured .
The rubber is the part of the tire that everybody sees but it is merely a coating on top of the constructed fabric. The rubber gives no structural advantage to the tire and is only there to protect the fabric from damage . Different combinations of rubber give different performance. A soft compound will give you more grasp but it will wear out quicker. A harder compound will last longer but it will slide around more when pushed to the limit.
When you put all the above together you can see that there are many different combinations that can be achieved and so it is important to choose a tire which is suited to the job. So, if you are a road racer then you have to look for particular road racing tires that suit the rims you have chosen to ride on.
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