Im after some tyres to replace the Hans Dampfs on my Stereo 29er. They are 2.35s, so something of a similar size would be fine, perhaps a few grams lighter if possible, MUST be tubeless compatible. Im a bit out of the loop with what tyres are considered good at the mo, so opinions please

I run On-One Smorgasbords on my 29er (Titus Ti Fireline) and they are great tubeless . Plenty of grip – wet and dry.

I run 2.4 ardent up front and beaver rear. Pretty pleased, have been meaning to try racing ralphs for ages though.

Beaver front and rear would be good in the mud.

I run hans dampf 2.35 front, smorgasbord rear, both tubeless…grear combo imo: hans dampf is a great no-compromise tyre for the front, smorg is good, solid (quite heavy) and cheap!

Same here as nuke, HD front, Smorgasbord rear.

WTB Vigilante – tons of grip, but a bit draggy.

I have a high roller 2.3 exo on the front and an ardent 2.2 exo on the back, works really well for me

Specialized Purgatory Grid rear, Butcher front seems a decent combo to me.

Not too heavy, not too draggy – not managed to hole them yet but I do use the slightly burlier Smorgasbord and Chunky Monkey for real rocky stuff.

Give kenda honey badgers a miss, front very sketchy in mud. To be totally fair they’ve been great on the dry chalky SDW trails.

Bontrager XR1 Team Issue 2.0 front and rear. Light, insanely fast, terrific grip everywhere when it’s dry. Looks like a fat cx/road tyre almost, but many people don’t realise that the larger contact patch on a 29er tyre means that the profile can be much lighter without sacrificing grip. Ran them all summer and not once lost control where I shouldn’t have. Maxxis Beaver front and rear when it’s very wet. Very light, very grippy, but quite a bit slower. Never tried to mix them up, but may have a go this autumn, with Beaver at the front.

+1 for the spesh butcher purgatory combo. Reasonable weight, pretty grippy, and a sensible price.

Just put a set of Geax Goma TNT on my tallboy, coming from a Hans Dampf, the weight difference is great, but the rolling resistance is vastly reduced without a great loss in grip, the rubber is a great sticky compound.

Just put a set of Geax Goma TNT on my tallboy

The most under-advertised and under-rated tyre out there…

FWIW, you don’t need the TNT casing either to run tubeless! The standard version goes up just fine…

Anyway, tonnes of grip, faster than it looks by a factor of lots, not too heavy, seems to last very well despite the sticky 50a rubber. Mucho awesome tyre, I recommend it to everyone and those I know that have bought them too, all say the same…

TNT are a bit tight on stans rims though, mine went up well easy on LB hookless 35mm

The high roller 2s are very good, prefer it to the spesh butcher up front. Went up tubeless very easily too.

Kenda Nevegal on the AM wheels.

Rapid Robs on the XC wheels.

I like both, but if I’m honest, apart from rolling speed and weight, I notice very little difference in grip.

many people don’t realise that the larger contact patch on a 29er tyre means that the profile can be much lighter without sacrificing grip.

Yeah, tread pattern and tyre width definitely seems less critical on 29, the momentum just lets you get away with more on off camber sections too IME.

Eg. the On-One Smorgasbord doesn’t quite cut it in 26in format, but is fine in 29in.

+1 for the goma, just spent a week on mine with dougbasquemtb and I was very impressed; good grip across a wide variety of conditions, mud clears quickly and never had a problem with the casings which I can’t say about the Hans Dampfs that I took off. Weight for the TNT version is similar to the HD but roll a lot better.
Seem to remember they were designed by the same guy that designed the classic maxis tyres (high roller, minion)

Seem to remember they were designed by the same guy that designed the classic maxis tyres (high roller, minion)

I’d heard a similar rumour too. They were “designed for” Cam Zink (who has since done really rather well with them so far!) who used to ride Maxxis too. If you look at the tyre, it’s got all the best bits of a Minion and HR tread pattern, with a compound 1/2 way inbetween Super Tacky and MaxxPro, and it’s way faster rolling than either too…

Shame the 2.4″ seems to currently escape import into the UK (as far as I can make out) as it would be an awesome Enduro tyre (the 2.25″ is a good width, but probably more trail than Enduro sized).

The high roller 2s are very good, prefer it to the spesh butcher up front. Went up tubeless very easily too.

Had an HR2, the Triple compound EXO 2.3″ version. To be honest, I wasn’t impressed with it. I loved the original HR, but I felt the HR2 had a more prominent transition from centre knobs to edge knobs (not lesser), and it was too big for a 2.3″ IMO.

2.4 TNT Goma, would be an awesome everything tyre

I’ve just bought a Goma on that back of this thread. Looks very similar to a minion tread pattern and a lot cheaper than the maxxis tubeless ready minion too.

£25.99 for TNT version or £22.99 for the standard folding version at Fatbirds.co.uk (not a shop I’ve used before though).

I never really got on with my HD’s so I replaced them with a WTB Vigilante up front and a Minion DHR 2 EXO at the back. Weights are very similar I think. I really like the Vigilante, but I’m still undecided on the Minion although I think I might be running it too firm, so I’ll drop the pressure a bit tomorrow to see if I unlock a bit more grip. If I still don’t get on with it I’ll probably stick another Vigilante on.

Bontrager 29-3 TLR Team Issue 2.3″ or Rocket Ron TLR Pacestar 2.35″, both do very nearly everything well bar proper mud and I’ve got a set of Mud X TLR’s set up on another set of wheels for that