Not A Butcher And Not Quite A Hillbilly – Specialized Announces All-New Eliminator Tyre

We’re well and truly on our way to winter, and although the weather is turning the trails haven’t quite decided how they want to run. Somedays they run greasy and slick, then the next an afternoon of winter sun get’s them running fast and sticky again! Just what tyre should we be running?

Well, Specialized hopes your answer might be their all-new Eliminator, a tyre designed to slot nicely between the Butcher dry weather tyre and Hillybilly mud rubber. Specialized claims that the Eliminator fills this gap nicely offering a good level of grip, traction and cornering bite while managing to be fast rolling.

The Eliminator tyre will come both 27.5in and 29er options in either a 2.3in or 2.6in widths. Tyres will also come in either Specialized’s Grid orBLCK DMND casings too with prices ranging from £40 to £55 each.

Specialized tell us that we have a couple of pairs of Eliminator tyres in the mail so we’ll be able to put them through their paces soon. In the meantime check out the press release for more details below.

Press Release Follows;

LOOSE AND ROWDY TRAILS—WE HAVE A NEW TYRE FOR THAT
We’re rolling out a new tyre, the Eliminator. While it’s a versatile, all-around gravity tyre, the Eliminator is
especially at home on loose and aggressive trails. In a sense, Eliminator fills the gap between the Butcher (harder,
compacted soils) and the Hillbilly (loose and wet soil).

If you want to call that “enduro”—go ahead. The Eliminator, after all, rolls up to speed easily and absolutely slays
on rowdy, chunder-filled tracks. Or you can ditch the buzzword-of-the-day and just think of the Eliminator as an
excellent choice for rides when you’ll need a ton of braking control and cornering grip.

TONS OF CORNERING BITE
Let’s start with the tread. The Eliminator combines a distinct row of shoulder knobs with smaller center blocks. The
center blocks are arranged evenly to bite in soft soil, but they also help with straight line-to-corner transitions.

Carefully-shaped transition knobs between the center blocks and the aggressive shoulder knobs also give the
Eliminator a smooth and predictable feel when you lean hard into a corner at high speeds. You get lots of grip and a clear sense of how far you can push the Eliminator before drifting commences.

STICKY AND FAST
Riders need traction, but they also need fast-rolling tyres. That’s why we developed a specific GRIPTON® tread
compound that delivers excellent traction by better conforming to the trail. This compound also helps the tyre roll
fast, given the tread blocks’ ability to return to their original, un-deformed state with surprisingly little friction. The
stuff is sticky and fast.

IT COMES IN TRAIL AND GRAVITY FLAVORS
Eliminator comes in two casings. GRID is your trail casing, as it’s light and supple but burly enough to handle rock
gardens. BLCK DMND takes it a step further with more heavily-reinforced sidewalls that help it to blur the line
between our GRID and DH casing, while letting you ride DH tracks on a trail bike.

SIZES AND SUCH
Eliminator is available, in both GRID and BLCK DMND casings in the following sizes: 27.5 x 2.3” | 27.5 x 2.6” | 29 x 2.3” | 29 x 2.6”