Sea Otter: e*thirteen TRS tyre launches

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The Sea Otter was our first chance to see e*thirteen’s new all-round TRS tyre that was announced earlier this month (on April 1st, so not everyone believed it). Although it’s rare for wheel manufacturers to launch tyres, it’s not completely unheard of, with Mavic’s wheel/tyre system already a couple of years old.

e*thirteen felt that making an all-round trail tyre made sense, and ‘working with a major tyre manufacturer’ it worked to develop a tread pattern and compound that it thought would give the best performance. Currently the range is a single, front or back tyre (in the spirit of the original High Roller) and it’ll come in two different versions and for 27.5in and 29in.

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The TRS Race and TRS Plus are the same apart from their respective dual and triple compound rubbers.

 

e*thirteen, trs tyres, trs tires, sea otter
Front or rear. Chunky either way
e*thirteen, trs tyres, trs tires, sea otter
Reinforced sidewalls to prevent pinching

There’s a TRS Race and a TRS Plus tyre, though confusingly the Plus isn’t plus-sized, it’s the same as the Race at a ‘true’ 2.35in, designed for modern inner rim widths of 24-31mm. (For a look at some of the more affordable versions of those, see the new issue 105 that’s out this week by the way).

The difference between the two sets of tyres is in the tyre compound, with the Plus tyres being about 25g a tyre lighter, but with slightly harder rubber than the Race tyres that seem to be true race-day jobs.

Weights
TRS PLUS 29 900g   TRS RACE 29 930g
TRS PLUS 27.5 875g   TRS RACE 27.5 905g
RACE Durometer 40 SIDE / 42 Centre / 72 BASE
PLUS Durometer 50 / 61 Centre

DSCF3742

e*thirteen, trs tyres, trs tires, sea otter
Those are ‘accordion sipes’ OK?

The tyres feature multiple ‘sipes’ (moulded-in cuts in the tread blocks) which help add grip and can help direct knob deformation performance and direction. The ‘accordion’ sipes on the side blocks let the knob deform progressively under hard cornering, other sipes add braking performance or cornering grip. The front of the centre knobs are ramped to allow for smoother straight line rolling.

Here’s the official blurb for you:

 

Screenshot 2016-04-18 20.01.58

And finally, e*thirteen is launching its handy sachets of ‘Tire Plasma’ – an in-house developed tyre sealant that is said not to dry out or form little aliens inside your tyres. The re-sealable pouch can be carried in a toolbox or in a pack (though we’d be wary of carrying a re-sealed one in a pack…) and it will do from two down to one tyre depending on the tyre volume and diameter.

e*thirteen, trs tyres, trs tires, sea otter, tire plasma
Plasma for your tyres
Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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Comments (3)

    I like the little aliens which grow inside my tyres.
    is it only me?

    Gnarly. Bring it on for 27.5+

    That seems to be the issue with 27.5+ – no one really makes a chunky, aggressive tyre. WTB announced the TrailAssassin on April 1st too, but unfortunately that was a joke – because it looked just what the UK needed…

    Peakpedaler – it’s not just you, no…

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