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Right then, am needing some inspiration for yet another tyre purchase, ride a selection of trails but mainly wyre forest, so far my tyre experiences are such:
Kenda BG front Nevegal rear - found these worked well in all but the worst of the mud
Panaracer Rampage SC - ok in the dry, rubbish in mud, not confidence inspiring
Nobby Nics - felt decidedly average at everything when new, poor at everything once they were a bit worn
High Rollers - crap at everything but that is because I am a crap rider (this is the result of posting on here about not getting on with HR's)
Bonty XR4's - only tyre that has managed to spin me 180 degrees whilst on a flat straight section, have really tried to like these tyres but not gained any confidence in them
Dirty dan's - great in the mud
swampthings - great in the mud
Run both as pairs or swampy frt dd rr, all combos work well in the somme like conditions that the wyre resmbles at the first sign of rain 😀
All the above are or have been run tubeless on stans flows.
So for an average (at best) middle aged over weight over biked mincer what will I be happy with for most conditions?
Why aren't you swapping from a dry to a mud tyre when conditions dictate if you don't mind me asking?
I'm of the the opinion that there is no do it all tyre.
I do swap when it gets properly muddy but hoping to find a tyre that handles a bit more than just bone dry conditions. I have no probs swapping tyres, just hoping I can find something that works on rocky, hardpack and dry forest litter trails but doesn't give up completely if there is a bit of damp mud or the odd puddle thrown in.
im just gonna throw black chilli rubber queen in here, had to appear at some point in this thread 😆
but ye, theyre good.
New conti black chilli collection, are where I'll be for my next set of tyres, though there not cheap by any stretch of the imagination
(after I've worn out some my rag tag collection - might be some time)
Barons, Mountain King II and Rubber Queen all seem interesting, though the std RQ's are no better or worse than NN in mud IME (neither of which are great TBH). Though none of these will have the speed of a full on dry tyre like the Racing Ralph or X-King, not that that looks to be a issue so far this year.
Want to see if the BC compounds are all there cracked up to be.
Most of my riding is in Wyre too, with the a bit of trail centre stuff and bigger mountain rides thrown in as well.
For ages I was running P'racer fire xc pro front and rear, I found them quite good to be honest, but as I've got back into riding more over the last year or so, the front could be unpredictable and the rear neither really "biting" into mud or gripping over it.
When things got very dry last summer I ran Kenda smallblock 8 front and rear, great until really fighting to grip on the front on looser stuff.
Winter just gone (hopefully) I put a High Roller 2.35 up front, with a PR xc on the back again. Initially I hated the HR, but as I'm improving my ( still a bit slow and awkward) riding technique and learning to get my weight over the front, it really has become something I like. Since feb I've ditched the PR at the back and run a 2.2 ( seems much narrower than that) Conti Montain King on, which , for me, makes a great balance between grip and slip in the gloop.
I really do think tyres are enournously personal things though and if it wasn't for the fact that we ride the same trails, i'd find it hard to comment at all !
You aren't the only "local" I know who hates HRs, but some love them !
(Giant Trance b.t.w.)