Maxxis Shorty

What are these like? I’ve entered SES round 2 at Ae forest, somewhere which i havent ridden before, and im wandering if these would be a good choice?

Not used them but Ae should not be muddy enough to justify a mud spike. They will be using some trail center stuff so a mud spike tyre not the best for that. DHF would be my choice.

I’ve been using one all winter on mud, hardpack, roots and loose gravel/rocks and it’s performed very well. Won’t be keeping it on for the spring/summer as I’ll go back to the DHF but have been very happy with how it worked on many different surfaces.

Its a good tyre, not a full on spike like a Dirty Dan, more an intermediate like Schwalbe’s Magic Mary…the centre spikes are cut down so it rolls faster than a typical spike.
A few companies have got a tyre like this is their range now as they work so well in a nice range of conditions.

Obviously if the course is manicured trail centre stuff then there’s no need but for more natural off-piste stuff i’d happily run one in dry loose conditions too.

Not used them but Ae should not be muddy enough to justify a mud spike

Anything like previous UKGE or SES last year I’ll be running my Shorties. Enough mud to justify them and no massive detriment on hardpack. There was some right clarty stages last year and that was July…

The Ae SES last year had less trailcentre/hardpack than I’d expected, and some pretty slittery sections, a lot of work had gone into livening things up and most of the hardpack sections had enough gradient to make a slower tyre not a disaster I think.

I went fairly fast-tyre last time, kinda regretted it but it did work out not too bad, not sure what to use this year. Whatever’s on the bike probably 🙂