I put some Mountain Kings (2.4″, folding) on my Norco LT as the got reasonable reviews and were a Planet X bargain. They were on widish (XM521) rims and looked good.

The first time I rode with them I broke my elbow. After that healed I cracked my patella soon after.

I figured I’d lost my mojo as I just felt nervous riding anything slightly tricky. Off camber made me grab both brakes and chicken out of anything more than walking speed. I guess I’d had 6 months off proper riding altogether.

I switched to Maxxis 2.1″ Advantages that I’ve had in the shed for years and realised just how much the wrong tires had been messing with my rides.

TL;DR – Avoid accidents. Don’t skimp on rubber!

and were a Planet X bargain.

Where they Black Chilli compound?

With Contis you want the Made In Germany, Black Chilli compound ones. The cheap far-eastern made, non-BC ones are rubbish by all accounts. I’ve run BC Trail Kings, X Kings and Race Kings and they all stick like the proverbial to the proverbial, great tyres.

The non-black chilli contis are utterly terrible, avoid like the plague.
The Black Chilli MK2s are only OK, I didn’t find them especially grippy and they’re relatively heavy for their size.

Horrible, horrible tyres that single handedly lead to me crashing on every stage of an enduro a couple of years back*
*ok, lack of talent may have played a part, but I still blame the terrible front end grip provided by some utterly dog poop tyres
BJ

Used them a few years ago and they were great; fast rolling, also very grippy for such a widely spaced tread. Unfortunately they used to wear very quickly and were expensive. Maybe the new cheaper, harder compound doesn’t transfer well to the King’s tread pattern.

The cheap Contis are pants, but the newer mid-level Pure Grip compound tyre isn’t bad from my experience (2x 2.2″ MK II’s on my hardtail) in terms of grip or ‘tubelessability’.

Also had 2.4″ Black Chili MK II’s on my full suss and really liked them. Sounds to me like you’ve got the cheap and nasty ones.

I’ve used them (2.2″) for the last few years, at different levels of cheapness depending on what next day tyres had in stock at the time. They’ve been fine for me; I’ve not noticed any grip problems. The cheaper ones have thinner sidewalls that don’t work tubeless after they’ve been used for a while, but that’s my only gripe; the slightly posher (or just newer) ones have been absolutely fine.

I have a 29er BC MK protection running tubeless on the front of my orienteering bike and really rate it highly. Masses of grip, rolls well and only weighs a tad over 700gms which is fine for the rough ground being covered around here. Never had a flat in 12 months competition either. Bought from Germany for about £30 instead of the £55 they seem to cost over here

Conti are good at clever rubber, probably because of the auto crosspollination? And mostly bad at everything else… so take away the one thing they do well and mostly what you get is shite. The MK soars to the dizzy heights of average. It helped me understand what all their “supersonic”, “protection” really means- if there’s a supersonic version, it’ll be averagely fast, and all the other versions will be too slow, and if there’s a protection version it’ll be averagely punctureproof and everything else will puncture if you use a sharp tone of voice.

If they’d licence the black chili out to CST, we’d see some good stuff.

Northwind, are you trolling us about tyres? Auto cross pollination? What?

Tried some a few years ago, utter crap even in black chilli. Tyre punctured twice on first descent then ripped the sidewall. The grip levels were attrocious for the UK at any psi.

To date Continental have only ever made one good trail tyre and that’s the Baron but even that was not without it’s flaws. Maybe this improved sidewall slightly larger, slightly redesigned Baron will be amazing…………..but probably not.

I did find with mine I had to break them in a bit. Mine were the ProTection Black Chilli jobbies. They were a bit skittish for the first few miles but once bedded in they have been awesome.

I was wondering whether to put something a little faster rolling on the rear. Anyone use an alternative for this? I need loads of puncture protection as most of my riding is managed woodland aka bed of nails tracks and the contis are about the only tyre I know to survive this. Thought about the Race King/Cross King/Trail Kings..

Superficial – Member

Northwind, are you trolling us about tyres? Auto cross pollination? What?

I would never troll something as important and sacred as a STW tyre thread!1!!

What I meant was, they’ve got lots of experience in clever rubber from their high performance car and motorbike lines, that’s where black chili comes from frinstance, so we benefit from all that investment.

Thinking back, I did come a cropper on my first ride with them too 🙂

I have a BC Trail King to swap out for my summer front tyre, which is starting to pack out with mud on some trails now. After riding the TK last winter, I don’t really want to put it back on though; IME it washes out pretty easily at the front. I keep gawping at Shortys and Vigilantes instead.

No, not just you who found them crap.

I got some years ago (about 2009 I think). They were crap in many ways:

Triangular tread blocks just sliced through mud etc, so spinning out a lot of the time.

They were too thin (I thought someone had fired a shotgun next to me on Potato Alley in the Peaks when I heard a boom and looked round to see ‘smoke’ hanging in the air).

The tread was too spaced out.

They were a bind to remove with cold fingers.

Maxxis and On-One (i.e. knock-off Maxxis) all the way for me now.

Glad to see it’s not just me who found them rubbish… well, the non-BC version anyway.

I can’t blame them for the broken bones, much as I’d like to. Jumping down the steps at school (well most of them) did my elbow and washing out in a rock garden broke my knee. I don’t think tyres would have saved me in either situation.

Got the Advantages and my mojo back now and it’s only another month or so before it’s time to dig out the summer tyres 🙂

I had the 2.4 Mountain Kings. No idea if they were the Black Chilli version, but they came as standard on the 2008 Five Pro. I found them really sketchy on corners, on varying surfaces. I always thought it was just me, not getting used to the new bike perhaps, until I read something on here about them. Changed to Racing Ralphs and was quite impressed at the difference. The MKs were definitely crap.

I put 2 MK2s on (black chilli, protection) and found the grip (or lack thereof) a bit unnerving. Like a washing out feeling going into corners fast. Grip issues and both tyres going flat after the 1 ride meant they came off the bike after a ciouple of days 🙁

I wont touch Conti MTB tyres

the road tyres are great

Agree with the comments above about them being rubbish. i’ve tried MK, TK and XK

all utterly terrible and all Black Chilli, i’d hate to think what the normal non BC compounds are like.

very little feel of what the tyre is or isn’t doing and the MK is the only tyre that i’ve written off in one ride, burped it on a rock and de-laminated the tread from the carcass!

Utter liability in OE spec.

I think most people have been taken in over the years – in the left hand you have a Rubber Queens / Mountain King for £45, in the right what looks like the same thing for £15. 15 quid, bargain!

I swear if they could liquefy whatever they use to make them you’d have the best chain lube ever, it has no friction qualities AT ALL.

Even after I learned this, I foolishly bought one of each, think the cheap one would make a cheap rear tyre – WRONG.

I’ve always like the BC ones, they roll faster than the equivalent Maxxis with slightly less grip it’s all very marginal – it’s a shame the sidewalls are made out of paper, I always rip them before I wear them out.

I bought front and back MK 2.4” bargain basement tyres to get by on my winter HT. I hated the things! The tyre profile was all wrong on my Flows and the compound was like plastic. They also punctured a huge amount.
In contrast, I bought a bike that came with a MK II ProTection 2.2” on the back and it was fantastic. Grip level was good with little resistance and it was a very predictable tyre. Compound was fairly soft and only got one puncture when flint shredded the sidewall.

What I learnt was to go for the best class of tyre in that model, and avoid cheap stuff like the plague. Yes it’ll be more expensive, but it actually makes cycling more enjoyable.

My first time out on Mountain Kings was my last ride; the back wheel washed out and I put a handlebar into my kneecap shattering it into lots of little pieces. I haven’t been able to ride since then (May). Safe to say my impression of them is rather negative on that basis.