DAK ... where to get at a decent price 571/650C 25/28mm tyres

[The utility cyclist]

So I've just bought my grandson a racing bike so we can attempt breaking LEJOG at the youngest age, no actually just so he can have a nice bike for the roads when he gets a bit older so it's a lay up for at least 2-3 years. But I want to get some tyres for it, currently had Hutchinson 23s but want 25s or 28s.
I've seen some 28mm Conti 4000SIIs but they are £49 each + post from Germany and some Terry Tellus but these are US based and even more expensive, mostly the available width is 23mm or much wider (47mm butchers tyre) in a hard very low quality like a Kenda which I've seen in the 700C variant and they are rock hard. Panaracer also did 28mm pasela's in the 571 size but not seeing any over here as yet and still around £30 so not cheap.

For the price of a pair of decent tyres I might as well just get a lightweight small framed MTB and put skinny tyres on that that I know I can get easily and relatively inexpensively too.

This annoys me, there was a perfectly good smaller wheel size to use already and instead of expanding on that for MTB and smaller touring frames or were you wanted to have wider tyres than you'd get for 700C they've gone back to the old French size and so tyres are now virtually non existent.

So any pointers or if anyone has a single lurking unwanted.

[landsurfer]

Decathlon ......

[Brucey]

re Decathlon; I looked on their website recently and maybe I looked poorly or something but they appear to have stopped fitting their smaller road bikes with narrow 650C tyres and worse yet they appear to have left their customers that bought such machines in the poop too; I could find little sign of either spare wheels or spare tyres in this size amongst the products listed.

The size has been quietly dying for some time and this may have sounded its death knell. You can still buy 23mm tyres but 25s and 28s have been difficult for some time.

cheers

[The utility cyclist]

Just also noted that Halfords are selling their Rouen 650C bike with the cheap Kenda tyres for £180, they are also selling a Kenda 25-571 tyre at £5 each so probably get a few, it's not really the tyre I was after but it's simply not worth spending £100+ even though it would improve the ride/rolling resistance.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/650c-Bike-Ty ... SwyOJdHgk8
£40 each for a 28mm

The bike was less than a tyre!

[Freddie]

Why don't they just start making road size 650B stuff (rims/tyres)? Now that the size is more popular among mountain bikers, might be easily than trying to revive 650C, which seems to be showing little to no signs of life (it could service all the old 650A/26 x 1 3/8" roadsters too).

[Brucey]

Why don't they just start making road size 650B stuff (rims/tyres)? Now that the size is more popular among mountain bikers, might be easily than trying to revive 650C, which seems to be showing little to no signs of life (it could service all the old 650A/26 x 1 3/8" roadsters too).

that's kind of missing the point; as well as those still being made there are millions of bikes out there already with 571 rims and 590 rims and they need tyres (regularly) and wheels (occasionally). Other wheels won't fit in bikes that are made to (just) fit any one size.

In addition, if you made 584 rims for road bikes/ 23-25mm tyres, they would be different from other 584 rims. So would the tyres be. So if you have different rims and tyres that you can't swap about, there's no point in having them any given diameter even if it happens to be popular right now; there's no economies of scale or parts interchangeability.

cheers

[The utility cyclist]

Why don't they just start making road size 650B stuff (rims/tyres)? Now that the size is more popular among mountain bikers, might be easily than trying to revive 650C, which seems to be showing little to no signs of life (it could service all the old 650A/26 x 1 3/8" roadsters too).

I don't understand why they revived the 650B, of all the sizes they could have simply developed the 650C which would have worked with both MTB/gravel and touring bikes. Seems like it's so they can flog more frames as nothing (or hardly anything) will fit to retro/older frames, it's always manufacturers doing the dirty, stopping production and folk feel they have no other option but to buy a different bike.

There are hardly any fast rolling narrow 559 tyres anymore or they are like the 571 size simply damn expensive and 559 narrow rims are non existent. I had a pair of 559 MA40s on Campagnolo hubs, they were absolutely epic with a Kona Lava Dome, I run them with a 25mm tyre and it was a fast rolling as a road bike.
oh well

[RickH]

... This annoys me, there was a perfectly good smaller wheel size to use already and instead of expanding on that for MTB and smaller touring frames or were you wanted to have wider tyres than you'd get for 700C they've gone back to the old French size and so tyres are now virtually non existent.

That MTBs started out with 26"/559 wheels is more an accident of history - it was pretty much the only size available in knobbly tyres back in the day when they were "never going to catch on". By all accounts they would have been 27.5"/584 or 29"/622 in preference had there been tyres available for them in the quantities needed for mass production.

[mattsccm]

I have used 559/26" mtb wheels in a frame built for 571/650c wheels. Didn't even change the brake calipers which were short drop Suntour things. 25mm tyres were then possible as the bike came with 19mm 650c's. Bike long gone but still hanging on to the 559 25mm tyres just in case.
To the OP, as far as I know , 650c became popular as a triathlon and front TT tyre in the days when narrow as best. Few tyres were more than 23mm.