Tyres....Radial, bias-ply or cross-ply?

[Steve Jones]

The choice must be yours. They are, however, different products. If you talk to Longstone, they will usually offer you a deal when buying 5. They have a French national on the staff at Bawtry if it helps you to converse with them in French.

Steve

[Peter Johnson]

FWIW, I run blockleys on my fabric saloon and on the cup model and I think that they are great. I use the cup model for VSCC hill climbs and sprints. They are very different to the Avon sidecar tyres that were on the saloon previously and improve the handling no end although the steering is ever so slightly heavier than the Avons.

The longstones do appear to have more tread depth, but it takes me so long to wear tyres out, it didn’t factor into the decision.

Peter

[Ian Williams]

I have Blockleys, Longstones and Avon's, both of the former feel better than the Avons, the Longstones have greater tread depth than the Blockleys and the latter seem to wear quite quickly.

[Chris KC]

Just to give you a breadth of replies Michael I've never used anything but Avon sidecar triple duty; meaning I'm sufficiently happy with them not to have tried anything else, not that they wear out very often.

[Bill Sheehan]

Just to give you a breadth of replies Michael I've never used anything but Avon sidecar triple duty; meaning I'm sufficiently happy with them not to have tried anything else, not that they wear out very often.

Michael - i guess you have your answer re the different types.  Suggest don't even think about cross-ply.  My 1954 Lanchester Leda is fitted with them and when one first drive off it feels like it has square wheels.  Takes between 1 and 2 miles for the rubber to warm up enough to give a comfortable ride.  Not good, but can't afford new replacements at the moment.   Cheers,  Bill in Oz

[Tony Press]

Just to give you a breadth of replies Michael I've never used anything but Avon sidecar triple duty; meaning I'm sufficiently happy with them not to have tried anything else, not that they wear out very often.

Michael - i guess you have your answer re the different types.  Suggest don't even think about cross-ply.  My 1954 Lanchester Leda is fitted with them and when one first drive off it feels like it has square wheels.  Takes between 1 and 2 miles for the rubber to warm up enough to give a comfortable ride.  Not good, but can't afford new replacements at the moment.   Cheers,  Bill in Oz

Where are 3.50 X 19 tyres available in radial construction ?

[Michael D]

Just to give you a breadth of replies Michael I've never used anything but Avon sidecar triple duty; meaning I'm sufficiently happy with them not to have tried anything else, not that they wear out very often.

Michael - i guess you have your answer re the different types.  Suggest don't even think about cross-ply.  My 1954 Lanchester Leda is fitted with them and when one first drive off it feels like it has square wheels.  Takes between 1 and 2 miles for the rubber to warm up enough to give a comfortable ride.  Not good, but can't afford new replacements at the moment.   Cheers,  Bill in Oz

Where are 3.50 X 19 tyres available in radial construction ?

I may have. been misled by the website of banden-guru.nl where under the specs of the AVON AM7 SM MkII tyres it is stated that these tyres are of radial construction.

Edit: funny.. to my question wether or not that tyre is radial or bias ply I just received an e mail from the German mother company of banden-guru that they cannot supply that tyre in 400x19 (even thought it is on the banden-guru website as being available....) so let's just. strike that one from the list definitely.

[Tom Coates]

I have blockleys on my car and they seem to hold the road very well, although I don't have anything else to make a direct comparison. The only problem I have is that they seem very hard and don't really absorb road shocks even when run fairly soft. My father finds the same on his Chummy.

I am having some new wheels made and plan to fit Longstones which I think are a bit more compliant, although strangely enough David Howe says he found the opposite!

The blockleys also look a bit "low profile" although when I compared dimensions they seem to be pretty much identical to Longstones so its possibly an optical illusion created by the finer tread?