I thought I didn’t have a tyre problem and I’ve changed my mind.

Bike is a Whyte E120 with a 20mm Reba up front. Wheels are ProII/XM819. Tyres have been variously UST Nobby Nics 2.25 and UST Fire XC 2.1s. The Fire XCs are grippier than the Nics and encourage more hooligan antics and that is where there trouble starts. The Fire XCs lure me into riding harder (feels great) and then at moments when I really don’t need it they pop all their air out and hurl me into the bushes. To be fair, I could do this the the NNs as well, but generally they don’t encourage as hard.

Some smartknob will point out that I should ride smoother. I’ll point out that I’ve spent years (approx 20) building up to the point where my confidence is letting me tackle things in a manner I’ve always wanted to. The silly thing is that pumping up the errant Fire XC I’ll be on my way at suicide pace again enjoying the feeling of confidence right up to the point it disappears again in a pop.

I weigh 14.5 stone.

Pressures are usually at around the 35psi mark.

Rims are in good condition.

Riding is mostly North Downs/Surrey Hills with the occasional Afan/Cwmcarn trip.

I’ve bunged on a leftover 2.35 Super Tacky High Roller dating back to an Alps trip. This solves the problem but I get that legendary High Roller draggy performance.

What are my sensible tubeless tyre options?

Tubes? More air?

Seriously try checking the pressures with a different gauge – you might find the one you have is not reading properly

Refuse to turn my back on tubeless technology as a whole. It is modern and therefore must work. 😉

Pretty confident I’d be pinch flatting 2.1 Fire XC with tubes.

Trying to think of a non-rude way to refute the pressures accusation. Pretty sure I know my onions when it comes to pressures. Tyres are just too small for what I am asking them to do.

as a fellow tubeless fettler the two UST tyres that have impressed me most have been the 2.35 Maxxis Ingnitor Lust and my favourite the Michelin All Mountain 2.2 UST, the michelen have proved to be grippy but fast, tough, very reliable and still look as new as when I put them on 6 months ago. I really like this tyre and I have used them pretty much everywhere from deep mudded local rides, peaks grit and Welsh slippy slate. oh and they are great on trail centre kitty litter too.

peaslaker, the supertacky flu eh? So named because a mate put them on his bike and was so knackered all the time he ended up going to the doctor convinced he had a mystery virus!

The 2.35LUST HR’s roll pretty well but I’ve fallen out with them because they lasted a week here before the sidewalls ripped. Turns out loads of people out here have same issue. If it’s not really rocky with you then you might get away with it. Advantage’s roll well and are meant to be dead grippy and you can apparently use the non-tubeless version as tubeless no prob’s at all.

THe other tyre I’ve used tubeless and loved is the Bonty big earl. Nowhere near as draggy as the highroller. Using 2.35 mud tubeless ready. Had 2 burps but both times I’d dropped my pressures to below 20 so my fault. Also it wasn’t a total loss of air so didn’t pitch me into the bushes!

New information on this subject today. Looks like my Reba is bottoming out at about 75mm rather than 120. Fork action is very good until the the sudden bottom out. Suspect oil has exited the damper into the lower legs.

Sudden bottom out is causing the Panaracer to pop? I may give them another shot after fixing the fork because the High Roller experience is sapping. Grippy but sapping. Interesting though how the tyre provides confidence equal to an inch and a half of extra travel. There is something absolutely confidence inspiring about the High Roller experience, even with a duff fork.

Stick with the High Rollers and accept they’re slower?!

It seems you know the exact problem, as you’ve said the tyres are too small for what youre doing, why not try bigger tyres?! A 2.4″ Nic or something?