Continental Contact Travel Tyre

[tunnie]

I have a 26" MTB, which I use for mixed touring type rides. (2011 Hardrock) - I've recently ridden a route to Guildford via Basingstoke Canal, Saturn Trail, River Wey into Guildford.(like to avoid roads!)

I next want to tackle the South downs link, hopefully in the next month or so!

Each big ride I've done, I've had a puncture! I run Fast Trak Sport LK's 26x 2.0 which came with the bike originally and only run them at 30/35 Psi. I did have some hybrids fitted for a London-Brighton blast, but these are to road focused.

I'm thinking of getting Continental Contact Travel Tyre, reviews look good. Little confused, they run inner tubes i think? I take in quite a bit of gravel, by rives/canals etc and planned South Downs Link.

I'm not into tricks or pushing it mega hard, I have some bags on the back and just like to explore. Ideally without getting a puncture!

Thanks

[Nearholmer]

The tyre I found really good for all that, including the very routes you mention, Downs Link etc, was Continental Contact Plus, which is the puncture-resistant utility/touring sibling of the one you are looking at. I even did bits of the South Downs Way on them at both 32mm (very bumpy indeed!) and 37mm (still bumpy, but not as bumpy!).

I eventually moved on to tubeless, which are even better for that sort of thing, but I still like the Contact Plus for bikes I use infrequently.

For a very puncture-resistant, and pretty heavy, tyre they roll surprisingly fast, and are surprisingly supple when compared with the competition. Their modest tread works well on hard surfaces, and has enough grip for things like gravel tracks, towpaths, woodland paths, dry singletrack etc, and they only really get outclassed by certain types of mud, steep and loose slopes, and steep damp grass slopes. Punctures? I was getting roughly 1 in 6000 miles, always an evil stilleto Blackthorn when it did happen. They last ages too, and even keep going for a bit with large areas of the underlying puncture-resistant rubber showing through.

Some others here have used them with success too. I reckon Continental “under sell” these tyres, because they fail to mention their real versatility.


Link to sizes (looks as if 1.75” is the widest for your wheels, but that is more than enough) https://www.conti-tyres.co.uk/commuting ... ntact-plus

PS: you may be running your tyres at pressures that are causing pinch/snakebite-flats, where the rims bottom-out and nip through the tube, given that they are tubed ones. Have a look at recommended settings via something like the Silca on-line calculator, using “Category 2 Gravel” as the surface.

[tunnie]

Many thanks for the detailed reply. Think I'm going to order some of these Contact Plus's

On point of bottoming out/pinching, it is possible I don't run it mega high.

That said, both punctures have been on smooth, straight sections, last one, I just went though a pedestrian restriction thing. Started off again, smooth and straight and just went dead flat...

Last one was a very old tube though, that came when I bought the bike.

[tunnie]

Looks good? Not sure why it says Urban

https://www.tradeinn.com/bikeinn/en/con ... lsrc=aw.ds

47 will fit my Hardrock?

[Brucey]

whenever the puncture fairy visits, it is SOP to find the cause, for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that because this way you are much less likely to have two in quick succession, both from the same object, lodged in the tread.

[Galactic]

Looks good? Not sure why it says Urban

In German cycling parlance touring bikes and paraphernalia are currently lumped together with 'Urban'. These touring tyres are classed by (the German company) Continental as 'Urban/Tour' and presumably the website you looked at was too lazy to copy the whole description and left it at 'Urban'.

It annoys me that touring bikes and equipment are increasingly shoved into the pootling-around-and-doing-shopping category, but that's how it is.

[toontra]

Continental Contact Travel tyres are absolutely brilliant in my opinion. I've been using 26" x 1.75"'s for many years on my 90's rigid MTB which I use for daily commuting, foreign tours and training.

In many thousands of miles, including rough surfaces (e.g. Mt Etna lava flows), I can only remember 2 punctures. They handle very well and if you hit loose stuff like sand you can lower the pressure and the side-wall tread kicks in.

I have 3 spare pairs in case they go out of production! SJS were doing them cheap recently.

[Nearholmer]

47 will fit my Hardrock?

Almost certainly.

Two dimensions to worry about: the bead seat diameter, so 559mm for what is known as a 26” MTB wheel (don’t ask, it’s a long story!), and the rim internal width, which should be marked on the rim somewhere, and is probably something like 23mm (might be more or less).

Provided the tyre is somewhere roughly 1.75x to 2.25x the rim width (and many people are happy to go to much larger multiples), you are good to go.

So, 47-559 would likely be the right tyre for you; don’t make the mistake of buying 47-622, cos they’ll be too big for the rims!

Bike Inn seem to have chosen to entangle the US and international standard metric size figures to make a previously unheard of mixture! I’d buy from a UK supplier, personally, someone like SJS, because BikeInn have previously rooked me by taking money for goods they didn’t actually have, and had no prospect of getting, then making the refund a complicated and protracted process. Evan’s actually stock Continental tyres, but it’s pot luck whether your local store has the size you need.

My son had 47mm tyres on 23mm rims on his hardtail MTB for ages, until he wanted a faster bike and that one got stripped for parts.

[tunnie]

Thanks all, will look at SJS

[hoogerbooger]

I'm with Toontra on this.

Have used 26 x 1.75 Travel Contacts on our mtb go anywhere tourers for 20 yrs or so. They are not puncture proof (blackthorn in particular)..but when they do I've not found them difficult to get off ( on a range of rims).... They roll really well on the road and have enough noble to get up the sides of banks. Done loads of gravel/ off road with them loaded or unloaded. Just back a 80% gravel trip across Spain on them. ( Need to wash my mouth out now....I think I said gravel....on which matter I'm supposed to be retro grouch)

[Nearholmer]

It’s quite a difficult choice between the Contact Travel, and the Contact Plus that I recommended, isn't it? Both have 180tpi carcass, which makes them quite supple for tubed tyres, so I guess to boils down to weight vs puncture protection. My thinking is that the different tread patterns will be “swings and roundabouts”; I can envisage circumstances where either would be better than the other.

[MrsHJ]

Contact plus here. No punctures so far. Have done 6000-7000km on very varied surfaces, fully laden for touring, lots of gravel. Recently had to replace the tyres as the rear one was worn out. Went for the contact plus again due to the no punctures. Heavy but appears bomb proof.

Had a puncture on my other bike (different tyres) and was really shocked- I’d forgotten they happen!

[toontra]

It's the smooth centre tread that makes the Contact Travel a better tyre if you're going to be doing the majority of your riding on road. Unless there is something counter-intuitive going on you would expect the Travel to have a better rolling resistance on flat surfaces.

[Nearholmer]

It ought to, although the way the “fish scales” in the centre of the Plus overlap makes that pretty good on hard surfaces too.

What I find interesting/curious about the Travel is the quite pronounced side-lugs. They are a good feature if you end up cycling on deeply rutted tracks, because they allow you to climb in and out of ruts well, and they are good for going sort of sideways up steep banks, neither of which the Plus is fantastically good at. They might also help in some types of mud. I did have one set of tyres a bit like that, and the thing that I didn’t like about them was fast cornering on hard surfaces, where they seemed to suddenly transition from being smooth, to like riding a three penny bit, just when you wanted a constant ‘feel’. When choosing tyres these days i try to find ones that have no “sudden” transitions, because I didn’t like that sensation at all.

[toontra]

They might also help in some types of mud. I did have one set of tyres a bit like that, and the thing that I didn’t like about them was fast cornering on hard surfaces, where they seemed to suddenly transition from being smooth, to like riding a three penny bit, just when you wanted a constant ‘feel’. When choosing tyres these days i try to find ones that have no “sudden” transitions, because I didn’t like that sensation at all.

Honestly I've never noticed that being a problem. I use these for training in Tenerife where you are descending at high speed around multiple hairpins and switchbacks. I have bar-cam footage of the bike leaning over at extreme angles which are quite un-nerving to view

As you say the side tread becomes useful in mud at higher pressures and if you let some air out it copes better with sand / silt / scree.