Just a thought. I use my bike mostly for commuting at the moment, occasionally off road at the weekends. It's an 8km commute. I'm curious whether it makes much difference, and isn't "bad" to put some road or slick tyres on my bike, rather than the cross country ones. Would it do anything at all noticeable?

Grippier on tarmac and in the wet. Less tyre noise and noticeably lessened rolling resistance.

I went for continental sport contact 700c slicks and they made a massive difference back when I was riding. The higher psi also contributes to the difference.

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No reason not to if you don't ride off road.

Any suggestions on good places to look for cheap but not horrible tyres and wheels?

Seems the few bike places around me either don't want to know or want to sell me a road bike. I just want to get a second set of wheels that don't have off road tyres on,  so I can swap between them.

Didn't realise how expensive they were really.  Well,  my local bike shops cater more to the £1000+ bike brigade so I guess it should be expected.

The other cost I didn't think would be so high are bike holders for maintenance. I figured it'd be 20-30, not 150!

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wheels arent cheap cos of the gears on the back one. sometimes much more efficient just swapping tubes and tyres around.

and +1 for the rolling efficiency. you'll wish you'd done it so much earlier when you feel how nice it is riding on road tyres.

what size... and rim breaks or disk ? how many gears on the back end ?

I've got loads of spares, might have something for you

don't think I've got any decent tyres spare, but if I send you the wheels you can get the tubes/tyres cheap enough anyway :-)

Rose bikes. Based in Germany but very cheap

Cheers guys.

Thanks for the offer knighty, will need to get back to you on the number of gears, but they're 26" rims and disc brakes.

front disk too ? I don't have any spare front rims with disk breaks... just had to buy one myself... got about 10 with rim breaks :-(

Front and rear disc. I might just sort out tyres and inner tubes. I only go off road once every few weekends so I guess it won't be too much of a hardship to switch them over when I do.