2019 16" moped/scooter tire pop-off: which is the most puncture proof?

I also ride in a very puncture rich area. Here my current findings:

going from bicycle to MC tires helped a bit, but not too much. The typical thing over here are nails, construction staples, screws and bolts.

If you want to be 100% puncture proof, you could try mousse in MC tires. Rolling resistance is horrible, so is the weight, but 100% puncture proof. It added 5-6kg per wheel (rim, tire + mousse together) compared to bicycle wheels.

My current setup is with Continental KKS10 tires and the Tubliss system. I had one puncture so far - on which I was able to ride home. Added some slime and voila everything sealed. Less than 5 minutes to fix and it has kept the pressure for 2-3 months now. Without tubes the slime works much better. The tires get sealed much more easily, since they don't expand like soft tubes.

Weight is less than the mousse and the rolling resistance is much better as well, since you can use higher pressure (mousse behaves like 15 psi or so).

I can say i've only had two flats from road metal, versus well, i think i've picked at least 50,000 goatheads out of my tires.
Sounds like you live in a real hellscape for bikes.

Would the the continental KKS10 you're running just so happen to be the 22 inch size ( AKA 26" in bicycle land )?

Just got back from my nightly ride, and i found a couple cheap 20 inch tires, so i followed through on amberwolf's idea and made a Tire in a Tire. The resulting "tire" weighed 1.7lbs, compared to the lightest of my scooter/moped tires, the Hutchinson Spherus at 2.7lb.

The resulting tire in a tire rolled notably faster than the spherus, despite the fact that the outer tire is a cheap shitty CST with a funky thread. The total tread depth is 8mm, which is 1mm more rubber than the Marathon Plus. So in theory, my bike could be sitting on 10mm of rubber if i combined a Marathon Plus with a lesser tire. :thumb:

I'm going to ride on this tire for a bit and report back, as we're in the beginning of goathead season. I'd like to see how the tire in a tire fares.

FWIW, I'm using the Shinko SR-714 (I think) 16" x 2.5" on the rear of SB Cruiser, with thick moped/mc tubes (mostly natural, partly butyl, rubber). I have not measured, but I think between those two there's probably 7-8mm of thickness except in the grooves of the tread, which are a couple mm less than that.

Should be more than that by a few mm but I apparently forgot to put the old tube carcass over the new tubes when I put these tires on.

Except for a tiny piece of wire out of someone's car or truck tire that made a tiny hole / not-really-slow-leak in the first set of tires last year sometime (or maybe year before, I forget), once the tread had worn completley down to nothing in the middle (probably halving the thickness?) I didn't have trouble with the tires after I stopped trying to use bicycle tubes in them and went wth the MC/moped tubes.

The second set have also been fine, until yesterday, when a thorn over an inch long (probably mesquite, from branches broken off a tree that was near the edge of the road across a sidewalk a while back) made it thru the tire and tube, and gave me a slow leak. Whcih wouldn't have been a problem, just keep airing it back up every few days, but yesterday as I was about to leave work, while reairing it, I thought I'd be clever and pull out the thorn....
(along with a few dozen other much much smaller ones, none of which had made it past the tire itself)

Of course, that deflated the tire in about 10 seconds. So had to patch it, which was easy enough by pulling just the outboard bead off the rim and pulling the tube out, marking the hole, shaving off the "seam" ridge near it, roughing it up, etc. Been fine since then...but once my back gets better enough (if it does) or I can build a fixture for rolling the trike over on it's side and then back upright, I should take the wheels off and put the old tube carcasses over the existing tubes, to add some thickness. May not help with inch-long thorns like this one, but it'll stop most stuff, given that even just the existing thickness does that.


Only thing I don't like about these Shinkos is that they wear quickly, but they're sticky and give good traction, so I guess it's a compromise. They're no more expensive than bicycle tires that would last less time and give much much less flat protection and less traction, so I can live with it.

inch long thorns.. god damn.
I have heard that the shinkos wear poorly but they are at least cheap.

'The toecutter' is totally right in saying that tire friction of a moped tire is negating the aerodynamic advantage that my bike has. I've now tried several moped tires on, and have noticed a huge variance in how much they impede me.

Vee rubber 2.0 x 20: massive friction, likely due to the BMX/offroad pattern. Lycra dudes blow past me hard.
Mitas MC2 2.25 x 20: Better than the above, despite being heavier, likely due to pattern. Lycra dudes blow past me, but not as fast.
Hutchinson Spherus 2.25 x 20: This puts me 1:1 with the lycra dudes. Tread pattern not so bad, and one of the lightest of the MC tires.
Tire in a tire 2.0 x 20 ( tioga inside a crappy bmx-style CST ): I'm beating the lycra dudes, and pedaling a gear higher vs the hutchinson.
Tioga slick 1.95 x 20: I'm destroying the lycra dudes, even uphill. I'm superhuman! ....but get a flat every 1-2 rides.

So yes, without any ability to measure tire friction watts... we are talking about a huge difference.. probably 2-3x more friction watts for the MC tire versus a really fast rolling bike tire.

I ordered 2x Schwalbe fast rolling tires, one puncture proof, one not. I want to see if i can get 11mm of rubber depth.. if i can get that, then maybe MC tires are out for me.

neptronix said:

inch long thorns.. god damn.

Click to expand...

Thankfully I don't normally have to worry about those; just wherever there are broken mesquite or similar trees and such from higher winds/gusts--mostly that's parking lots that use fast-growing junk trees that have really long thorns (I have one in the front yard at home, too, growing next to the palm tree; have to watch myself if I get near it so I don't end up with holes in *me*). I can usually pick a path or route that doesnt' include them, but this time I didn't notice the broken branch near the road until too late to change lanes, and even then I thought I had gone around all the bits...but I didn't get past the one, apparently.

neptronix said:

Vee rubber 2.0 x 20: massive friction, likely due to the BMX/offroad pattern. Lycra dudes blow past me hard.
Mitas MC2 2.25 x 20: Better than the above, despite being heavier, likely due to pattern. Lycra dudes blow past me, but not as fast.
Hutchinson Spherus 2.25 x 20: This puts me 1:1 with the lycra dudes. Tread pattern not so bad, and one of the lightest of the MC tires.
Tire in a tire 2.0 x 20 ( tioga inside a crappy bmx-style CST ): I'm beating the lycra dudes, and pedaling a gear higher vs the hutchinson.
Tioga slick 1.95 x 20: I'm destroying the lycra dudes, even uphill. I'm superhuman! ....but get a flat every 1-2 rides.

Click to expand...

So the Hutchinson Spherus has even lower rolling resistance than a tire marketed as low rolling resistance? That is very interesting! Also in teresting that earlier going from the Vee Rubber to the Mitas MC2, originally your wattage requirement climbed, but now you're saying the MC2 are the more efficient of the two?

Do you know what speed the Hutchinson Spherus are rated for?

Do you know how these all compare to the Schwalbe Marathon Plus?

The spherus is rated for 31mph. It's quite an oddball. Seems to be designed for a moped specifically.
The other tires are front tires for scooters or motorcycles. Hence the large difference in weight and thickness.

You should only take my tire resistance while pedaling figures into account, but the accuracy of 'what gear can i pedal in' is questionable. The vee rubber fails the pedaling test very hard. I never gave the MC2 a proper pedaling test.

I don't have a comparison to a marathon plus, but i've owned tons of marathon pluses over the years. I can tell you that you get about 7mm of protection, mostly in the center. The sidewall is pretty weak, and the likelihood of taking a thorn to the sidewall is pretty high.

I think the spherus and the marathon plus are good tires to cross shop, if you have a 20 inch wheel. The spherus gives you a smidge more rubber in the center, but a lot more on the side, which is where the marathon plus lacks. Also, it has a harder compound, so the harder rubber is likely to resist some punctures itself. But it will never roll like a marathon plus - you'll see a big difference.

You know, if i can get my hands on a bike trainer that accepts 20 inch wheels, i may be able to do some formal testing at a standardized PSI so that we can find out what the holy grail 20" tire is, in terms of finding a balance between rolling resistance and puncture resistance.

Reviving an older thread here-

Did anyone try the Schwalbe Moto-X 20x2.35 compared to the rest? I have one on the rear of my edgerunner- I've had no flats, but all the treads are pretty well worn off after about 1000miles. I run a tube with orange sealant in it, and this has actually worked well for me (it seems, maybe just lucky).

Also are these moped tires working for 10sp cassettes? Curious how much wider, if any, they are compared to the 2.35 moto-x.

I've had the Super Moto-X 20x2.40" tire on the front of my SWB recumbent for two years now, combined with a puncture/thorn resistant tube. It does get 180 lbs on it, and has had no flats, but only about 300 miles so far. The small crosshatching tread on the surface has worn off, but the grid of rain grooves are still there. It has much more of the lateral traction that I need than the original tire it came with.

I lived in denver and colorado springs in my day and can tell you the goathead hell i deal with in Utah is nowhere near as bad.

Fall is goathead season though. So let's see how your bike tire fares after then. Cuz that's when bike tires go poppity pop for me nearly every ride here