from March of 2007, page one of this thread:
Reid Welch said:
I put these Bontrager 2.5" Big Hanks on last summer.
They're grippy, silent and easy riding.
The sidewalls are thin, very thin (less rolling resistance, right?)
The cap is not very thick either. I'd -think- these tires could punture easily;
so far, no problem!
Their big bald appearance is strikingly good looking in person.
People who see the bike often ask about the tires; they like them.
And they are relatively fast and very easy rolling. I can and do go on turf and hardpack. The crossection is wide enough to help float the bike on sand---if I'm careful!
Slicks rule though, on pavement, wet or dry.
The fenders barely fit. I've since taken them off.
The OEM tires were Kenda Flames. They were thick, rough riding, and just no fun compared to the quiet, cushy Hanks.
Update. The tires are fully three years old, but have only about 750 street miles on them.
They remain in look-new condition in every respect. I still love them. Put them to the new Stealth Cruiser Submarine bike project;
and get this:
Because my new-bike is coaster brake only, and Ezee-wheel (36V) front, and because my 150lb of body mass is heavily biased to the rear,
and because there is NO front brake on this new ebike, I can and do run the Big Hank, the
front, at a mere 10PSI.
It rides manually just fine; almost as easily as if it were aired to 20 or 40 PSI.
But, at 10PSI
front (you cannot do this if you have a front braking system or super-powered front hub motor),
the Big Hank SUPERBLY soaks all road shocks. I intentionally hop on and off curbs and blast over rough, tree-rooted turf,
and never worry about a pinch flat: that front tire is so lightly loaded, that 10PSI is fully adequate, and gives the best ride:
no bounce, no jounce, and the only sidewall wrinkling is of the harmless sort: as when the tire acts like a front shock fork.
----
Got a new bike the other day. See the silly, odd but fun, Trek Lime?
Gonna put Hanks onto it. I will never ever run treaded tires again for street pavement work, wet or dry: slicks rule,
are so quiet and stable. HAVE NOT had a gash, cut or puncture, but our roads are pretty darned clean.
Factoid: a super-soft tire like my front Big Hank, is much less liable to glass-cut, due to its softness: glass does not get crammed into the compound, but merely passes on by.
For the Lime: It has insufficient front fork width to take the 2.5 Big Hank.
So instead I will get the 2.2 Hank. The rear? Will take the Big Hank, no problem.
Thinking I will be running 15 PSI front, and 20 to 25 PSI rear on the LIME fitted with Hanks.
Will experiment with higher and lower pressures, of course. But Hanks DO ROLL very easy, even if softly inflated.
Like said: if I have a puncture history (none so far), or terrible, glass-sharded roads, I might have to use heavier tires.
But I do not like the standard Bontrager (Trek's house brand) "balloon" tires on the Lime at present. They are OK, but
heavy, treaded (don't want no stinkin' tread!), and not particularly cushy at their present LBS-pumped 30 or 40 PSI
(I have not checked the tire pressure of the one day old LIME bike).
SUMMARY: for those of us who can make do with Hanks or Big Hanks, great. They are fine tires.
And IF you
don't have a front brake (well, you ought to have one, but I don't and won't), you need not air the front tire hard at all.
If you have a front brake,
there is where the
great strain goes when braking hard:
the Hank or other supple-sided tire must, in that case, be aired hard enough that it should not wrinkle like great granny's chin-wattles.
Golden rule for tires since day one: sit on the bike or look at the antique auto: the tires should show just some minor flattening at the contact patch.
This gives you your rubber-to-the-road, and air cushion, for which aired tires were invented in the first place.
Over inflation reduces rolling resistance slightly (see Sheldon Brown and Jobst Brandt's writings), but at the price of harsh ride
and possible crotch-crunching.
I like my
things round and soft and un-crushed. Wrinkles don't much matter.
FIN: BIG HANKS OR Regular HANKS FOR ME, forever.
Thanks go to all here, but particularly to the thread starter,
D-Man, who made this compendium of practical tire-choosing, and it
is proving to be eternally useful.
____________
many little edits at the time of composition 
because I always make a boatload of typos and other errors
