I had an unexpected few minutes today, and wandered into my LBS to look at new tires for my Specialized Expedition Comfort-beast. Yeah, okay, so the stock tires only have 450+ miles on them. They're knobby buggers, and as mentioned in a thread on gearing, people are telling me that I'll get nicer road performance on these "slick" tires.

Bike guy was more than happy to show me tires, and suggest things! He had four suggestions. Three are Specialized tires. There was one with NO tread at all, the skinniest tire I could put on my bike, he said. He didn't necessarily recommend that one for me, but showed it to me as one of the options. There was one called "Hemisphere" that he showed me pretty briefly. It's still pretty wide, according to the description on the web site, but much smoother than the tire I have now. Next we moved onto one that was very smooth, the "treads" looked like little worm marks in wormwood. Web information on this one is that the model name is "Nimbus." The fourth tire was a Michelin tire, named Country Rock

What totally amazed me is how much LESS rubber there is! I looked at them and said, and that will actually stay on my rims?

So, here's where I'm leaning. Either the Michelin that they only have one of in stock (limits choice if I want to do this now, doesn't it?) or that Nimbus tire is available in that armadillo version that Specialized does -- I don't see any "armadillo-like" option on the Michelin, and we got junk on our roads, as well as goat heads in the area big time. The availability issue has me thinking the Specialized tire rather than the Michelin (or checking the other George's stores in the area!)

Anyone have any suggestions on these tires?

Karen in Boise