Schwalbe Pacestar versus Trailstar compounds – much difference?

Hi there,

Im thinking about a new set of boots for my Bike. I had a chat with a guy who works for Schwalbe on Sunday at Swinley. I stopped to help his friend out with a spare inner tube and pump.

Schwalbe guy recommend the new Rock Razor / Magic Mary combination and having looked into it they look very good. I shopped around and found some good prices on the Rose Website for 26″ Evos SS in Pacestar compound. I have read that for the front at least I should aim for Trailstar.

Will it actually make much difference if I fit Pacestar to both ends? Most of the riding I do is at Swinley or trail centres.

Pacestar will be fine. Personally I’d say that’s an overkill combination for Swinley too.

Picked up the 26″ SS Evo MM trailstar/RR pacestar combo from bike-discount.de last week for about £66.

Seems a good combo, surprising amounts of grip from the RR yesterday in the rain.

Trailstar is like 60a whereas Pacestar is harder more like 70a. Personally I find 70a too squirrely but a Trailstar front/Pacestar rear usually works well enough favouring speed over grip

Pacestar not as good as a trail/vertstar up front when it get’s wet.

Personally I’d put pacestar closer to 60a than 70a. It’s definitely softer and more tacky than maxis 70a at least. It also doesn’t wear as well as 70a.trail star seems closer to 50a

I run pacestar front and rear mainly because it’s possible to kill a trailstar compound tyre in a weekend of rocky riding and unless it’s a special occasion I can’t sustain that kind of expenditure for general trail riding.

Difficult to say if pacestar is 60a or 70a etc because the’re triple compound, ie three different gums on the same tyre.
I run trailstar up front most of the year here in the south of France and a vertstar in winter conditions.

Swinley’s very hardpacked over the summer so I’d be less bothered about tread patterns and more about compounds as that’s what’ll give you grip, the knobbly bits aren’t doing much digging in at all. On that basis I prefer tyres like small block-8, specialized ground controll/captain, WTB bronson, etc. Very low profile tread patterns, but soft rubber on the edges.