So. I’ve been out of nerding out over tyres for a while.

Talking 26″

What is the current Golf GTi, chicken tikka masala, rock shox pike of trail tyres? The gold set and forget standard that everyone agrees to?

Not the conti vert pro, ever….

What you looking to do?

Not stay upright apparently

Schwalbe Hans Damphf or Magic Mary

And I mean that quite a negative manor, the Verticals were shit and lots of people used them too.

Negative manor

For me, specialised purgatory. 2.35

Tried nobby nics, they were ok. Quite liked maxxis advantage as well

Conti vert pros have been the only tyre I’ve ever given up on. I think I swapped them for some panaracers, the vert pros were just awful!!!

I loved my Conti Verts – currently using Nobby Nics: 2.1 on the h/t and 2.25 on the full susser.

I still like the Vertical Pros in the dry. Usually use a HR ST up front and an Advantage rear though, so what do I know?

I really hated the Vert Pros I had. On the other hand, I really love Trail Kings aka Rubber Queens. Great, grippy do it all tyres. Only things to watch out for are porous sidewalls if you intend to run tubeless and a couple of mine recently didn’t run true – so much I sent one back. If you do want to run tubeless, I would recommend the UST version.

Spesh Butcher control front, Purgatory control rear. You have to really be looking at condition-specific use and spend a fair bit more to get anything better. Plus they wear well, don’t weigh that much and setup tubeless very easily – I’ve just setup both of mine tubeless (Shorty and DHR2 over winter) in 30mins.

The Grid versions are tougher but heavier and the only time I’ve ever found the control casing to be outmatched by terrain was Antur Stiniog. To be fair the rest of the bike & rider were also outmatched!

Schwalbe wear very badly ime; especially the side knobs. Conti are ok but can be a real pain to setup tubeless. Maxxis DHR2 f&r is also great but a bit more n’duro

I still use verts, tried other brands, but always come back to verts.

Love the element of surprise they give you, not knowing if you are going to lose front or rear traction first, mid-bend.

Nothing beats a group ride, when you are all riding Verts, clearing a section without an off is considered rude.

Don’t knock it until you have tried it 😉

Wish I could still get the pro versions too.

Verts. Quite possibly the shortest lived tyre choice I ever made.

Fast in a straight line. Doing anything else with them was decidedly dodgy, especially if you lean. I have no idea to this day how they ever got so popular. They were also decidedly more xc focussed than any of the current darlings.

Ran them for years then moved onto Mountain Kings, then more recently Hans Dampf. Made the mistake of putting some old Vert Pros on my hack bike. Wow, they’re so confidence destroying! Replaced them with Nobby Nics, so much better.

Are conti verts no good then? I’ve been using them for years, 2.3″ on the front of my tandem. Wondering how fantastic I could have been with a better tyre 🙂 Don’t usually ride too much gnarr though, perhaps they are good enough for a wuss?

in the era they were popular I was using Panaracers and Onzas but I had a go on my mate’s bike which had Verts and on the loose pack trail we were on it was amazing, the front tyre just went where you pointed at all speeds.