Still loving my 2.4 Maxxis Advantage EXO front and rear. Perfect all around tire in my opinion. Sadly I think I only have one or two left in my stash.
1 Like
Been running Schwalbe Racing Ralph (rear) and Racing Ray (front) combo for 2.5 years. 29x2.25. Less aggressive than most other tires mentioned but they are super fast and feel nice when riding to and from the trail on pavement and gravel. They are soft and sticky so maybe wouldn’t be my first choice if I was on the granite everyday as I don’t know if they would last very long.
Zero punctures in 2.5 years
I’ve got the ForeKaster on the front right now and Aggressor on the back. Only have a few rides on it, it’s great at Mac Run and Whooper but was absolute shit yesterday at Bow.
1 Like
Keep in mind the material the tire is made of. I prefer a softer tire so I can get every bit of grip, but soft compound tires wear fast and roll slow on granite and paved surfaces. A harder compound tire will slip much more especially on off-camber sections, but it will roll much faster and generally be more durable overall.
As with general consensus, Maxxis is pretty hard to beat for trails around here. Even their lower-end tires have great grip & durability.
1 Like
I’m currently running maxxis DHF/DHR. Planning on doing more biking to the trailheads this summer (whopper/McRun/Spider) wondering about trying something like an Ardent front, aggressor rear?
Maybe interesting to some, I actually sent a couple pictures from Mcrun of the terrain to both Maxxis and Schwalbe to see what they would recommend amongst their XC tires (Maxxis has a ton of tires that they list as being appropriate for hardpack), Schwalbe seemed to give me a pretty canned answer of “our XC tires are the Ralph/Ray combo, or using the Nobby Nic up front if looking for more traction than the Ray up front.” Maxxis said it looked like a job for the Rekon Race or the Ikon which may have been more thoughtful as they are a similar tread designs and fairly different than the tread of the Ardent Race or Aspen (the tire most of the World Cup XCO Maxxis riders seem to prefer).
In terms of durability I did put a significant enough hole in my Nobby Nic (right in the centre seam) that I could no longer run it tubeless (sealant sealed it but it opened again a few times before I said screw it and put a tube in. For wear, between the granite, gravel and road riding, the tread may be slightly more worn on the Ikon in the rear than the Nobby Nic (rear wearing more makes sense) but there is more cuts/tears in the larger tread blocks on the Nobby Nic while the tiny blocks of the Ikon are all intact. Feel like the NN would look worse if it was on the rear than the Ikon does.
I find the Ikon a bit skiddy (since new), when braking on the granite, seemingly more so than my ~75% worn Fast Traks (I had also reversed the tread in the rear as they were so worn). The Nobby Nic seems more secure as a front compared to the worn Fast Traks but I also feel like I can feel the bigger tread blocks and that grip when rolling although the Nobby Nic is supposed to be one of the faster rolling trail tires, it might be that it just isn’t as loose.
Also, find it interesting that the majority seems to favour running loose/wet/mud oriented tires on the granite, when we also generally avoid the trails when they are wet and muddy. Then again by comparison my bike with 26" 2.0 wide tires, HT with a 90mm fork makes me feel like I’m riding a go-kart at a monster truck rally with everyone having 150mm of travel front and rear and big aggressive tires.
3 Likes
I used the forkeasters when Covid kicked off and I was doing alot of commuting back and forth to the trails. They were mint for commuting and were crazy fast in fight trail, but the side walls were super weak and agressive cornering was never really a confident event. I ended up burping all the air out of the front on a moderate g out at high speed, causing a scary crash. For the type of riding I do, I would never use them again. Also, they were legit horrible for Enduro, zero braking compliance at all in anything loose or loamy.
Ideally I would love have 2 full wheel set ups and have some kind of Ikon/agressor mix in exo for local dry days. And then some DD casing DHR2/Assegei with an airliner for Enduro.
Really loving the braking on the DHR2 and how it handles in dry chunder. It does behave different on wet granite though compared to an agressor in the fact it brakes traction very quickly where the agressor is almost a bit more drifty on granite.
3 Likes
This tread reminded my of one of Jared Graves “Tech Tuesday” IG posts. Basically it’s good to ride shit tires from time to time.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAW-pVpDGqv/?igshid=1xlalr7nekqc0
2 Likes
I still love my Hans Dampfs. Translated from German it means roughly Jack of all trades. Fast rolling enough for hard pack and granite and chunky enough for loam and mud. They are a good balance leaning toward a trail tire. The soft compound wears fast but works on wet roots and rocks. A rounded profile is great for turning and gives good knob contact on off camber granite. The 2.35’s are only 850g in 29er size. But now Schwalbe has changed carcasses so I may try some Specialized tires next.
1 Like
If you wanna take that approach I’ve heard the Continental Racesport makes a pretty scary front tire, although its a pretty popular XC rear.