What’s the biggest non dual ply 26″ rubber available these days? To mount on a hardtail with good clearance. Looking for aggro tread and around 2.5, hopefully less than 1kg and will run tubeless. Running a Chunky Monkey at the mo which is reasonable volume but quite a shallow tread. Something with a bit more bounce and bite would be good next time. Magic Mary may be one but past experience with Schwalbe durability and cost mean I’d rather avoid. Other left field ideas?

Mountain king comes up pretty big. Or rubber queen….

Rubber Queen 2.4 in Black Chili, apex or protection. Probably the biggest you’ll get, look like a plus tyre.

Michelin Rock’R 2.4, cheap too, but no good for the front as the compound is pretty hard.

I have a Rubber Queen 2.4, huge. Think they are all called Trail King now, but I prefer the old name.

What about a Maxxis Ardent 2.4? Have got the same requirement myself, building up a Cotic Bfe.

Maxxis still do a DHF 2.5″

3rd on the 2.4 Rubber Queen, it’s massive!

May one highly recommend looking at Surly Dirt Wizards (120tpi version) as I was fairly impressed running them on 50mm rims.

That’s if sizing and clearamce allows…

I used a 26″ WTB Ranger 2.8 in my (26″) Soul for a bit. It’s squeaky but it fits and there’s plenty of grip too.

XR4 in 2.4 flavour is rather massive and supple.

stevied – Member

Maxxis still do a DHF 2.5″

that’s not big

Kayla, Interested in the WTS 2.8. How much clearance did you have on the frame and fork when fitted to your soul (I have a Bfe)?

Surly Dirt Wizard? will come up at 2.5 on a 30/35mm rim. probably. 2.35 on 21mm internal, 3.0 on 50mm internal

I use a 2.4 ardent on my soul at the moment which I consider to be pretty huge. I think I prefer specialized ground control 2.3 though, not much smaller and transition to drift is much more predictable

Magic Mary 2.35 Trail Star lasts ages in my experience, used to be £30 all the time for the proper top end one (not the Super Gravity 1045g) but the 795g trail version. Now though… they have this new new Addix thing and they’re super expensive £58 each.

Then again I paid £49 for a Minion DHF 3C when I couldn’t find stock (they’re £41 ATM) so they’ve all gone up in price. The DHR II 3C is always £49 too because nobody stocks it except NextDay tyres. The Minion SS I got recently was £41.

All my Schwalbe 2.35s come up wider than the 2.3 Maxxis on 25mm internal width.

I’ve not tried the 2.5 Maxxis because they’re not TR. Dunno if that matters. Quite fancy a DHF 2.5 SuperTacky to try for winter up front if it’ll go up Tubeless reliably without being a TR?

Wouldn’t touch any Continentals. I have some top of the range 2.4 PT BC MK2 and XK… zero grip, dangerous things the lot of them. Big volume yes. Useful on a MTB… nope. One friend thinks it’s because I’m 25kg lighter than him that Continetnals don’t work for me. Gravity eh!

Kayla, Interested in the WTS 2.8. How much clearance did you have on the frame and fork when fitted to your soul (I have a Bfe)?

The fork (Suntour Durolux) was fine, the back end of the soul took a bit of judicious dishing/truing to get it to fit ok! There was maybe about 2mm of clearance either side, but, y’know, clearance is clearance in the dry, right? 😯 😆