[Dept_of_Alchemy]

Originally Posted by rederanged

This is bad advice. Bikes don't hydroplane. See:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tires.html#hydroplaning

For riding on pavement, slick tires are best under virtually all conditions.

Sheldon's website is pretty useful but most of his advise assumes that the reader is an avid biker and does everything perfectly. But in RL, bikes do slide in the wet when you're a newb and afraid to use your front brakes, it'll slide more if you have narrower and slicker tires and slide less if you have wider and knobbier tires. So I do think that 'mountain bike' tires are safer. As far as slicks having a higher cornering speed on dry paved road than knobbie tires, well, I think my bike corners just fine in the city and I'm pretty crazy when I'm on my bike, so I doubt the cornering speed is going to be a problem for the OP.