Had my first ride on these today.
First thoughts: they go on the rims easily, but they’re no wider than the Rando Hyper 32s that I had on previously. Will mount up a Hyper and compare side-by-side with calipers. Was hoping for them to be super-fat, but no matter.
They’re fast and quiet: they feel as fast as the hypers, and are much quieter.
They’re comfy: running 70 rear/65 front at the moment, will drop it a little and see how I go.
All-in-all, I’m pretty happy, tho I’ve only got 30-odd ks on them. The Hypers have been my benchmark thus far, so will be interesting to see how they hold up in puncture protection.
But the price was right, under $60 shipped (with free tubes) from T7, but it looks like the offer is done and dusted.
I’ve run Kojak 35s for over a year on my tourer and my wife has them on her town bike, and we’ve not had a single puncture. I’ve not used Rando Hypers, but the Kojaks are so much faster than normal Randos, its not funny. My favourite thing about them is not the straightline speed, its cornering. The 35mm Kojacks, mounted on Velocity Dyads, have the nicest round profile that I’ve ever used, both road and touring. Leaning the bike over, loaded or unloaded, is a treat, the tread seems to wrap a long way down the sidewalls. I will buy again whatever the price. I think I paid around $35 or so each from LBS mid 2010.
Yeh, I’m a nervous nellie when it comes to dropping tyre pressures. Will ride home on what it’s at now, drop it by 10 and see how I go. They do seem pretty fast at this stage tho.
Pretty happy with the purchase, thanks to Jelmer for the heads up.
Well I did the first 64km on Kojaks this morning. ~60psi front and rear. Mostly road with a bit of bike path, some dirt and gravel.
Pretty happy so far. Like JP says, cornering is good. They feel like they have a fairly constant radius so it’s like you can just choose whatever lean angle you want.
And they look pretty cool with no tread and fat chunky SCHWALBE KOJAK on the side.
So now I’ve done about 270km on the Kojaks. I can’t fault them at all really. They seem to be wearing very well, they’re comfy and the cornering grip is great.
I dunno if I’d jump at them at their seemingly usual price of around $50 each but at half that they were a real bargain. I haven’t bothered to look but if they come in a 30-32mm that would probably suit me better.
Mine are 19’s and I was wondering how they’d go. I was thinking I’d need new wheels as 35’s are pretty big for 19mm rims. If it’s all good then schweeet!
They should fit fine. Just partially inflate to about 15 or 20 psi and make sure the tyre bead is seated evenly all the way round on both sides and then pump them up to the required pressure. Don’t go too high … unless you’re heavily loaded or really heavy there’s no point over-inflating nice comfy tyres such as these. Takes a bit of trial and error to find the right balance/pressure. Rear can be anything from 5 to 15 psi more than the front for most riders/bikes.
Haven’t tried these myself but they look pretty good. I’d like to here more long term reports.
