I have been running 2.35 nobby nics (evo tlr 29er 2.35 version) for 12 months on a hardtail and loved them. I just put the same tyre in pacestar flavour on the rear on my full suss (set up tubeless on an Arch EX rim) and find it to be terrible. At lower pressures they were rolling sideways while cornering so I increased to 30 psi and now they are loosing grip on corners and sliding out on corners. So bad that the rear was sketchy on a steep straight drop in.

Any one has had experiences on the nics. What other good allrounders are there for 29er that set up tubeless easy?

Cheers
Rich

Yep. I had exactly the same with 2.25 ones a few years back. As soon as I looked at a corner they were folding off the rims, especially at the back. Needed 45psi to stop it. Bloody awful things.
Fine if you mince round corners or weigh 4 stone i suppose……….

I think they are known for it Rich,i got Pacestars on f and rear and the rear is controllable but the front washes out on any sketchy terrain. Roots ,rocks and gravel- tis alright in mud though .I am excited for when they wear out ha ha as im too tight to buy more until then.

I mainly remember mine for puncturing more often than any other tyre I’ve used, and wearing absurdly fast into the bargain, but yes they are also not very grippy.

Fast, light and quite big for an XC tyre. But they’re not particularly grippy on any surface IMO, and on some they’re pretty bad. And as Northwind alluded to, they don’t half wear fast!

Always puzzles me why they’re so popular on the XC race scene, I know people that swear by them and won’t use anything else! 😕

slowboydickie

I have been running 2.35 nobby nics (evo tlr 29er 2.35 version) for 12 months on a hardtail and loved them. I just put the same tyre in pacestar flavour on the rear on my full suss (set up tubeless on an Arch EX rim) and find it to be terrible. At lower pressures they were rolling sideways while cornering so I increased to 30 psi and now they are loosing grip on corners and sliding out on corners. So bad that the rear was sketchy on a steep straight drop in.

Any one has had experiences on the nics. What other good allrounders are there for 29er that set up tubeless easy?

Cheers
Rich

PeterPoddy

Yep. I had exactly the same with 2.25 ones a few years back. As soon as I looked at a corner they were folding off the rims, especially at the back. Needed 45psi to stop it. Bloody awful things.
Fine if you mince round corners or weigh 4 stone i suppose……….

I could be wrong here (doubtful) but it may not be the tyre folding off the rim as much as the tyres plys shifting. Apparently they are made with an inner part and an outer tread glued to it. The glue begins to deteriorate and the two parts of the tyre move separately. There’s probably a bit of sidewall flex going on too.

I actually like them, and for what they are I think they are good but I’ve noticed them go off on me very quickly. I seem to be incapable of getting two months out of a pair. At nearly £50 a tyre they would really need to wear a lot better, especially when I’ve gotten 6 months out maxxis with ease and more recently great wear from wtb tyres.

I have 2.25 Nic’s on tubeless ready. Rode them for months with tubes then started to think about going tubeless as a few mates loved it. So I did the whole Stan’s thing and wanted to love it but was disappointed. I think the sidewalls are just so thin that without the support of a tube they just give way when leaning
The tyres are great with tubes in and I found them really grippy on my local grassy/peaty trails in the Black Mountains, (previously only ever run up to 2.1) but I think they are just too thin for tubeless, especially if you intend to run low pressures

SO I think my initial disappointment in tubeless is down to the NNs not tubeless altogether, so I will try again

Using a 2.35 on the rear of my Jones, mounted on a flow rim, its ok in softish dirt but rubbish in mud and not very good on hardpack, the 2.35 feels better than the 2.25 imo. Its not the worst tyre out there though.

Recently put a 2.25 NN on the front. Have found it wishy-washy and not confidence inspiring at all. The Racing Ralph it replaced was better.

Thanks folks for sharing thoughts. Caveman, interesting comments because I have been riding them fine for 12 months on the hardtail with tubes but they have been awful tubeless. I’ll try with tubes.

Just to add some balance, I love mine in all conditions, 2.25 F&R tubless 30/35psi.

Loved my NN’s tubed on the 26er, went tubeless, loved them even more, went 29er tubeless and loved them even more, got RR rear and love that a huge amount.

These tyres do no wrong in my book.

Sorry to be boring.

Same as Kryton, but 25-30 psi and a touch over 10 stone.

Gone as low as 20 with them when I haven’t been arsed to blow them up for a while.

Double post somehow…

Its not the worst tyre out there though.

Granted there are plenty worse.

BUT… If that’s the best you can say about a £50 tyre, then it doesn’t bode particularly well does it! Not when there’s lots of tyres out there barely more than half the price that offer significantly better performance.

Continental ftw 🙂

At lower pressures they were rolling sideways while cornering so I increased to 30 psi and now they are loosing grip on corners and sliding out on corners.

I had some on a demo bike, coupled with the snatchy Avid Elixr’s that were on it at any random moment the would decide to break loose, not exactly confidence inspiring. Low rolling but not much use when when it refuses the first corner. The guy who picked up the demo bike from the shop dumped them and the brakes on day 1.

yesiamtom – Member

These tyres do no wrong in my book.

You’re honestly happy with the speed of wear, and the way they lose grip once the edges are rounded off on the blocks?

You’re honestly happy with the speed of wear, and the way they lose grip once the edges are rounded off on the blocks?

You mean to say they actually get worse!!!

I could be wrong here (doubtful) but it may not be the tyre folding off the rim as much as the tyres plys shifting. Apparently they are made with an inner part and an outer tread glued to it. The glue begins to deteriorate and the two parts of the tyre move separately. There’s probably a bit of sidewall flex going on too.

Yeah, you’re wrong. 🙂
Nothing deteriorated, these were brand new tyres. And I could actually look back and see them folding off the rim once I worked out what the problem was. They really ruined the handling of my Yeti 575.

I use 29er triple compound NN 2.25 / RR 2.25 run tubeless at 30psi on Arch Ex (I’m 14st for tyre pressure reference!). On natural terrain near me (rocky moorland, soft grassland) where the knobs can dig in they work well, not amazing corner grip but are predictable in when they break free. On very hard ground or loose gravely stretches they don’t do much at any angle and they are awful in damp or wet conditions on rock and roots. Maybe a different compound version would work better for me.

I’ve just ordered some 2.2 MK2s for the winter rather than getting another NN for the rear. I get on with conti tyres much better so hopefully this will sort me out.

Maybe the 2.35 NN is too wide to sit comfortably on an arc ex rim without the extra support of a tube?

Have tried several different versions 2.1/2.25/2.4 std/Snakeskin and apart from the 2.4 SS they were awful tyres. Hyper-sensitive to pressure, useless in corners, astronomical wear rate and expensive.

Looks like in the minority here. I like my NNs and in contrast to others find the grip much, much better than RRalphs. To be fair, I had ridden standard bontrager Jones that came with the bike (in hindsight bloody good tires as I never thought about grip and they lasted 5 Years!!!) so my reference points are limited.

But I find Ralph’s really sketchy especialliy on flat corners and damp roots. Anyway with change in the weather I am about to go back to my NN for second winter/spring so I shall see if I still like them!

If they are crap tires why do so many companies fit them as standard?

If they are crap tires why do so many companies fit them as standard?

The entire OEM kit debate, put it there and you sold one (even if it was at a loss) and it gets out there, some people might buy more.

But could backfire on bike company. I demoed an anthem with RR on a dry day and then a wet one. First day felt great, second day was like bambi on ice. Nowt to do with bike, more tires (and me?) but put me off the anthem.

Although we could be in the Mtb review scenario of, “at £2.5K, this bike is a bargain (sic) and suitable for upgrading…” that one always has me scratching my head on different levels!

Can someone tell me which tyres are any good on slippery roots and wet rocks please?

I like NNs.

If think you definitely need snakeskin though for sidewall support.

I really like how the nic breaks away on the rear on firmer surfaces, but when you actually need the grip on off camber, natural, soft they really do bite. I think they brake really well too.

This is coming from a HR/minion/baron lover.

I have Nasty Nicks on one bike which aren’t too bad but the Rubbish Ralph’s on the other bike are awful. They don’t steer and they don’t drive and to add insult to injury they wear quickly. If I had some money I would bin them tomorrow and return to Maxxis but you don’t seem to see such good deals on them.

I tried running the 2.4 Nics on Arch EX and indeed they did feel flexy. 2.25s are much better on the same rims with a Gatestar compound up front (stickier).
The 2.4s are now on Flow rims, wider, better support. Again, trailstar front, pace star rear.

teamhurtmore – Member

If they are crap tires why do so many companies fit them as standard?

They’re pretty light so they flatter overall weights. Cheapness and availability too- same reason Orange fit horrible OEM-spec Contis that undermine all their bikes. Except for those they can’t fit their preferred horrible contis for like the 650b Five, it gets Nics even though they’re illsuited because there’s so few OEM-spec 650bs. Also there seems to be an assumption that lots of people will replace them anyway.

OEM market is weird, Kenda make a whole parallel line of crap tyres that look exactly like their proper ones, so people try them then swear of Kenda for life. But apparently the profit from one offsets the loss from the other.

I like NNs.
If think you definitely need snakeskin though for sidewall support.

Are you quite light?

I think one reason that tyres polarise opinions is that really the sidewall stiffness needs to increase proportionally with the weight of the rider. As you only get most tyres in a handful of different sidewalls at best (single-ply, reinforced single-ply, UST, dual ply) you’ll never get one tyre to suit everyone on that front alone (ignoring tread pattern, compound, etc).

Currently running 2.25 NN Snakeskin Gatestar up front and same spec but Racing Ralph on the rear of the Soul, tubeless, F.26psi R.30psi (typ).

I would agree with some of the above – re. the need for snakeskin sidewalls if running tubeless to avoid squirming (though that might be less of an issue on a wider rim – I’m using Crests).

The OEM ‘performance line’ are a terrible compound.

The Gatestar compound is much better, though I found the edge knobs on the Ralphs began to tear on rocky stuff (they never failed completely mind you). The Nic up front suffers less, as you can imagine.

And they’re light for what they are – I can see adding 0.75kg to the bike just by fitting ‘A Different Brand’ of tyres. IMHO obviously.

Got 2.25 Pacestar front running 31-32psi with tubes. Like it so much that I bought one to replace it only 2.4 wide and TL-R for TL setup.
As it weared I only noticed braking performance getting slightly lower. Other than that grippy, light, fast enough for me, durable enough for me.

NW, thanks for the intersting reply above. Strange how bike companies take such a risk IMO. Demoed bikes on he same day – one with NN and one with RR. Damp day riding rooty singletrack. Slid all over the place in the RR but less so on the NN. Instead of thinking about the tires it put me off the bike instead!!! Stupid I know.

Yeah, I demo’d a Five 29er which was the same- OEM-spec rubber queens, absolutely dire, totally undermined the ride. Left me cursing Conti, and slagging Orange… But also, obviously made it far less likely you’d buy teh bike.

But then, most of my bikes have specialized tyres on which I’ve bought from classifieds and ebay basically unused- people buy Speshs with excellent tyres and instantly replace them. So maybe we get the OEM we deserve 😉

i have 2.25 Evo NN and shock horror, I have not died yet!