Anyone that has ridden the new mountain king?

How is the grip, rolling resistance and braking performance?

any updates?

Based on the wait for the original Baron Projekt 27.5, we should be seeing the 2018 Continental tyres in late 2019…

lol

Had mine for a couple of months (bought from Germany). Grip and braking seem excellent, rolling resistance acceptable on the front, felt like peddling through treacle on the back! Changed the rear to the new cross king in 2.3, great combination IMHO. Previous tyre combo was DHR2 rear, HR2 front, DHR2 definitely rolls quicker on the rear than new MK, and that was 3C version! Cross King faster but not as tenacious. Mountain King on front seems easily as grippy as HR2, but more predictable for breakaway.

As ever, YMMV.

dhr2 less rolling resistance than new mountain king?

DHR2 is quite fast for it’s tread profile, but generally it’s not a fast tyre.

Any more had experiences good and bad of latest MK 111?

I’ve been using them front and rear for the last 1040.3 km (according to Strava). They are the Black Chili Protection version, which I had from CRC.

They went tubeless with no hassle, using just and old Joeblow track pump (on Shimano XT wheels). I’ve used them on various terrains in different weather conditions. The grip is amazing. I think that the wetter it is the grippier the tyres got. I’m not very skillful rider, but these rubbers give me a lot of confidence on wet roots and rocks. I ran them with quite low pressures 14 front 16 rear on mega wet ride a week ago, which included a lot of rocky bridleways – and there was not a moment where the MK’s would slip. Even on very steep gravel/rocks with wet leaves climbs (I mean “chest on the stem” steep, with 22t front and 36t back) the rear one offered constant traction.

I use my bike for daily commutes too. 100% tarmac, about 10 km each way. Yes, they rumble like a motherf####s. Yes, you can feel the vibrations coming from these lugs, especially rear. And on tarmac climbs you can feel and hear the rear tyre almost squeaking… But after over the 1000 km there is actually almost no sign of wear!

Thanks for that medoramas. I used the Mk 11’s on the South Downs for the winter months, and found them to be ok.

Like you I do a mixture of riding, so the Mk 111’s maybe as good as anything else.

I’ve got a 26″ 2018 Mountain King ‘ProTection’ on the front of my bike and it seems ok- it’s wearing ok, rolls ok, grips on loads of different stuff ok, not too heavy, went up and stayed up tubeless ok. They’re ok.

Currently running a 2.3 mk3 29er out back paired with a baron up front.

Using it for a bit more casing protection over the superb cross King and sacrificing the rolling speed as a result…not a huge penalty but a fair tradeoff for daily tech riding.

I ran a mk3 pairing for a few rides and failed to adjust to the reduction of traction out front compared to the baron and had a few painful moments as a result.

I’m such a baron fan that I’d struggle to run anything else out front other than on a race bike. In that case my pairing would be either mk3 front, cross King rear or cross King fr/rr.