Am looking for a front and rear pairing of do it all 26″ tyres and I’ve heard good things about The Captain and Purgatory jobs. I’m looking to fit them to 717 rims and intend to go no wider than 2.1″

Anyone out there have any experiences with these?

Big fan of Specialized 2bliss tyres – I find them the easiest off tyres to seat and inflate (on my ZTR rims). Seal really well, only takes a quick pump with a track pump.

There good value too.

I have 3 pairs, Eskars, Storms, and Fast Traks and regularly swap them over, as they are easy to fit and inflate.

Eskars are a pretty good Highroller/General trail tyre alternative, think the Purgatorys are quite similar but more racey/narrower.

I bought two S-Works The Captain 2bliss tyres, £30 each, & as above, easy to fit & inflate. Done a few rides with them now & they work well on a variety of surfaces.

Also like The Captain as a do it all tyre. I’ve been using the F & R but may change to a purgatory front for winter. Used other 2bliss tyres, all go up great tubeless. Keep in mind that you can get the S-Works tyres cheaper than the Controls, but they are much lighter / fragile so for general use look at the Control versions.

As above, I use captains, purgs and fast trax in various sizes and all work well.
I go with control 2.0 model on the rear and s-works 2.2 up front.
I topped up the Stans on 2 bikes a couple of weeks ago and only needed to pop the tyres off at the bottom, pour in a cupfull and pump back up. 4 tyres in about 15 minutes without taking a wheel off they are so easy.

I have the Captain and it’s a great tyre.

yep they work well for me I have them on both my bikes Purgatory front and Captain rear both tubeless 717’s gettoed and 719 with stans conversion

in ues all year round ( when I can)

Good tyres, and half the price of maxxis – what’s not to like

Same as what everybody else says but I will add that the captain is a big 2.2, doesn’t leave much clearance on my Rebas so may try a 2.0 instead. But apart from that all good.

Got Purgs fitted to Arch EX rims, fitted using just thumbs and inflated straight off with a bog standard track pump. Lovely.

Went for a Storm (F) and Captain (R), both 2″ wide. Took the ensemble out for a ride this afternoon and initial impressions are highly favourable. Making them run with a Joes kit was dead easy, they inflated at the first attempt and have only lost a teeny bit of pressure.

The Storm is an excellent front tyre, very grippy on off-camber stuff and it goes exactly where you point it. The Captain at the back proved fast rolling and very grippy too.

Why have I been a snob for so long? These are amongst the finest tyres I’ve ever used.

Aye, I think their range could be a bit better thought out- a stickier compound Eskar frinstance would be great- but when they make a tyre for the job you want to do, it’ll do it well.

Aye, Bit heavy for my liking, but good value, and impressively grippy. Got a 2.2″ S-Works Captain on my non-race wheels.

Specialized make great tyres, just most people never get past the default Maxxis/Schwalbe option to find out.

when i bought that set up everyone on here said that they were made of cheese and the sidewalls rip all the time

I think the sidewalls ripping thing is because people buy the S-Works version, when the Control version is the more appropriate trail tyre. My lbs sells both, and the difference in sidewall thickness between the S-Works and Control models is very noticeable. I don’t think the way they’ve named them helps. I guess people see “S-Works” and think that must be the top end tyre, when it’s really just a very light model.

I’ve had FastTrak LK and Captains (all 2.0 control versions). For the riding I do they are excellent. The rubber seems to cut up a lot less than the Schwalbe NN/RR combo I tried (both triple compound Evo Snakeskin versions) but that may be because Schwalbe design for Germany/Northern Europe/earthy trails and Specialized design for California/dry/rocky trails, and I live in southern europe.

I started off running FastTraks front and back ghetto tubeless with no problems (normal rims with a cut BMX tube), but have now moved on to a pair of UST rims with a Captain on the front. If you read the Specialized documentation, it’s pretty clear that 2Bliss tyres have a UST-spec bead, but they don’t call it that to avoid any licencing issues.

Anyway, Captain controls + UST rims work v nicely. I will probably try one of the new fasttraks on the back when my current Michelin XCRDry2 (cheap UST bargain) wears out.

I guess people see “S-Works” and think that must be the top end tyre, when it’s really just a very light model. [/quote

That’s the trouble though isn’t it, a 2.2″ S-Works Captain is still nearly 600g, whilst a 2.25″ Ralph is more like 470g. Yes they’re cheaper, but considering people find durability poor the fact they’re so much heavier isn’t great!

njee20.
Do spesh tyres still come up huge? Is the 2.2 captain bigger than the 2.25 Ralph?

Marginally yes, 2.2″ Captain fits in my F100s with no bother though. I’d call them a ‘proper’ 2.2″ rather than huge.

Big fan of spesh 2bliss control storm, marginally better than mudx. Easy to fit with track pump too.

I’ve got a Purgatory on the front of my bike & Sauserwind on the back. Seems like a good combo.

I’ve just swapped the Inbred tyres to Fast Trak front & rear as I have taken them off my oh’s bike as she wanted something more road oriented (got her some Hemisphere). The Fast Traks are pretty grippy, but you need to treat them with care on lose gravel – have almost lost the front several times on gravel since swapping, but they are nice & fast.

+1 for naming confusion.

The Captain Control is a little heavy at 610g (for the 2.0″ weighed on my digital kitchen scales) but you have to remember that it’s properly reinforced and for the sake of a 130g penalty on the old Ibis Canis it replaced it, it’s lighter overall by virtue of saving 212g on the inner tube and traction is much improved.

The front tyre is an S-Works Storm, which felt crazy light to me (505g for the 2.0″) and the sidewall isn’t nearly as substantial, but seeing as most of my weight is on the back it’s not going to be an issue.

Am very impressed so far.

I’ve got a Purg control on the front and a Captain control on the rear if my FS and they’re an excellent all round combo. The Captain is bigger than the Purg though.

Got S-Works Ground Controls on my 29’er HT and they’re great, granted the sidewalks are a bit battered but they’ve done over 1000km through all sorts from muddy forests to the Peak district rocks & XC racing, brilliant tyres