My K2 Proflex 5500

[fyrstormer]

Oh. Well yes, you can combine any tires you want. For a long time I had two different front-specific tires on my bike, with the rear-mounted tire turned around backwards, because it worked better than the rear-specific tires from both sets.

[crxstasy]

yep, looked them up a while back.  They appear similar to some really old tires back when compounds were pretty much all crap.  We've come a long way from Smoke & Dart.

Well no matter what, I say to each his own and secondly I'm sure the terrain is much different here on Long Island than over there in Washington. Thirdly, I'm no tire expert so was just looking for some feedback, suggestions etc and answering a question abt how my original tire setup ran.

[w2zero]

Don't bother taking offense, I was referring to a long time ago when about all you got was some different knob shapes and single compound tires that were either hard or soft.    They're names occasionally didn't make a lot of sense but some of them worked okay and it was a monthly competition for our wallets. 

 The present designs  might look a bit like some of the old ones but they will out perform them hugely due to superior design tweaks and engineered compounds that work with those designs.   Some of us in the shop never bought tires since there were guys and girls reading magazines who had to have the latest style on their ride monthly. 

Continue on with your build and let us know how stuff works.  It's always interesting to follow individual iterations on the same basic machines.

[crxstasy]

None taken. As you can see I'm kinda new to mt biking as a whole, not just these bikes. Only have been riding mt bikes for abt 2yrs (used to race bmx). As I said suggestions, feedback and just knowledge in general is always appreciated esp from those who have alotta yrs of experimenting and tweaking.

[w2zero]

My first mtb was a Sekai and the fork was a bontrager.  That fork was brutally stiff beyond belief.  No suspension on that bike unless you  let air out of the tires.  I rode it from Seattle to Portland one weekend to find out just how badly a butt could hurt.  Wasn't the intent, it just worked out that way.   Before that, I rode a Bianchi Grizzly on quite a few test rides on tank trails at Ft Lewis WA while a buddy and I ran the bike shop there.  Even then my butt wanted a full susser.  The first one I rode was a pre 95 Proflex a friend had as a loaner when his Fisher was snapped in two.  We kept marvelling at how much faster it was through the rough stuff on one of our favorite poaching trails. 

That was what prompted me to buy an 855 new, which I have upgraded and still ride.