Video: Seth // Edit: Curtis // Words: Daniel
Living amidst countless great trails for mountain biking not only affords us the opportunity to ride awesome trails on a regular basis, but it also allows us to take some liberties on rides and experiment in ways you likely wouldn’t if it was your one-off opportunity to get out and ride. Case in point: how do slick tires work out on the trail? It’s an experiment that no one would undertake if it were a ride they had been planning for some time, and there’s really no reason to do it other than to mess around and find out…which Seth is typically happy to do. It’s a dumb idea, but at the same time, it kind of sounded fun.
Slicks on a mountain bike (ridden on a trail) fit in the same category as underbiking in many ways. You take an inappropriate piece of equipment out on the trail. A tool that is not right for the job. A road or gravel bike on gnarly singletrack, a downhill bike on an XC ride, or slick tires on a technical trail. It’s a great way to ruin a perfectly good ride.
Over the years, I can’t count the times I’ve taken a road bike onto singletrack or ridden an XC bike in a bike park. I even rode semi-slicks for an entire summer in the bike park, thinking that they would improve my turning by preventing me from slowing down except when the tire was leaned over on edge (in hindsight, I don’t think they helped). I’ve consistently ridden tires with less tread to have less rolling resistance and, thus, more speed.
As it turns out, for me, riding a road bike down technical singletrack isn’t all that scary — you’re well aware that you’re on an inappropriate bike in a position that is poorly suited for descending. The slick tires have no tread, but you’re not really going fast enough to need to stop quickly, and they’re narrow enough that they actually dig a bit and help hold traction when you’re turning. The big danger with the road bike comes from either something on the road bike failing or the trail becoming too chunky to safely manage. The mountain bike? Now, that’s a different animal.
