Evening all,

I am due to go to Les Arcs in the Alps for a week at the end of August and I am looking to put some new tyres on my Cube Stereo HPC 120. I currently have the factory fitted Nobby Nic 2.35 tyres which I really like but would like to fit a set of Hans Dampf 2.35 Super Gravity tyres but after reading a few conflicting reviews on how wide they are. Some reviews state that they are bang on 2.35″ and some say they are massive at 2.5″. If they come out at 2.5″ then I am unsure if they will fit my bike and I don’t want to risk buying them to find out they wont fit.

Cube say that my bike will take a max tyre width of 2.4″ so I am good there, but with the Nobby Nics I would class the clearance as tight compared to by previous bike. So I am wondering if anyone knows how comparable in width the Hans Damfs are to Nobby Nics?

What width rims are you using? I’ve got 2.35 HD and NN on some 35mm lb rims and can measure if you want.

I’m running DT Swiss XM 401 29 rims which are 622 x 22.5 (27mm outer width).

If you can measure that would be great as all I’m really after is a comparison between the two tires, which your setup is perfect as you have both the tyres I’m after on the same wheelset so the size difference should essentially be the same for all rim widths.

I’m keen to read the result too, and interestingly I’m just back from a week in Les Arcs on my 120mm 29er running Nobby Nics front and rear. What have you got planned out there tatey?

How did you find it on your bike with 120mm of travel and your Nobby Nics?

There are 7 of us going, staying in a chalet half way up the Funicular. We are currently organising 2 days of guiding on the 2nd and 3rd day by TrailAddiction after reading lots of positive reviews. Ideally I would have liked to have all week guided by the budgets of others in the group hasn’t allowed it. So we will be self guiding the first day/faffing with everyone sorting lift passes/bike problems. And then asking for the advice from TrailAddiction when we are guided as to what to do for the rest of the week, I’ve also been reading up on a few good routes to do but we’ll play it by ear when we get there and see how everyone fairs. It’s my first trip to the Alps so I’m trying to be as prepared as possible to make the most of it.

I’ll go check now.

I spent the week with TrailAddiction and they were great. Loads of excellent trails that you’d struggle to find yourself, with the guides doing a good job of describing any features to watch out for up front. You’ll have a great couple of days with them.

As for the riding I think the bike was capable enough, though I couldn’t help feel that I’d have preferred to be on something bigger. Most others were on big 150-160mm bikes and I’m not a skilled/bold enough rider to account for the difference needed to keep up on fast techy sections. If your group is made up of similar riders it’s probably not an issue. I found I preferred either the fast & smooth, or slow and techy trails. It was my first trip to the alps and only my 3rd ride on my bike (previously used to 26er hardtails) so I was dealing with a lot of change at once which probably meant I was more cautious than necessary too. A high-speed off on day 2 didn’t help there either.

My main piece of advice would be big brake rotors. I went out there with 160mm front and rear and immediately spent the first night trying to source something bigger (got a 203 for the front but had to stick with what I had for the back). The biggest surprise for me was just how much time I was on the brakes (refer to the unskilled rider comments above.

Tyres were absolutely fine for me. I ran about 30psi and didn’t have a single flat and was never short of grip.

Ok, the HD is pretty much 2.4″, hard to do without calipers, but it’s way under 2.5″.

My NN is actually a 2.25, not a 2.35. But it measures up at 2.25 (maybe a fraction over) on the 35mm rim. So the 2.35 should be a smudge bigger.

In which case I think I’ll go for the Hans Dampfs, if it won’t fit on the rear then I can just use it as a spare for the front or sell it. Thanks for the help Dave.

Ally I’m currently running 180mm rotors with XT brakes and have just installed icetech rotors with Shimano sintered pads, it’ll be interesting to see what they are like on the trials, I’m hoping they will be up to the job. I think most others are on 140mm 26″ bikes but one is on a 26″ hard tail so I think we should be a a reasonably evenly matched group, or at least there is enough spread where we could split the group. I guess we’ll find out when we get out there there.

My 2.35 26″ Hans Dampf on Crossmax SX are narrower than my 2.4 Nics on Crests. If one fits, the other should be fine. Plenty Stereos ship with HDs too.