New a new rear tyre for my xc hardtail, and the front will need replacing soon. Current set up is Racing Ralph rear and Nobby Nic on the front which has worked really well for me but I’m looking for a different set up as the Schwalbe’s are looking quite expensive at the moment.

Would any of the following combo’s be good alternatives:
Vittoria Barzo rear front and rear
Barzo front, Vittoria Mezcal rear
Bonty XR2 rear and XR3 front

All in 29×2.2(ish) size.

The riding is local east midlands loops that doesn’t involve too much rocky stuff, a few woods and singletrack. The odd trip to Sherwood Pines is probably about as technical as it gets for this bike.

Any advice/experience would be great.

Vittoria Barzo rear front and rear
Barzo front, Vittoria Mezcal rear

I didn’t like any of these… but many do.

Barzo/Mezcal or Barzo/Peyote work well for me on the South Downs.

I’ve had XR3/XR2 combo on my XC bike in the Dales for the past year and it’s worked great. XR2 is a surprisingly grippy rear, so much so that I’ve actually stuck an XR1 on for this year.

All your suggestions are good. If Vittoria make sure they are the TNT sidewall versions with the G2 compound or the original G+ if there are any still around going cheap. The bontys have a decent sidewall anyway.

Bontys and Vittorias are the only tyres I’ve really found to be flawed in recent years. Bontys just pinch flatted (set up tubeless) everywhere on the rear of an HT (though were good on the front of a rigid 69er tubed a few years back, so maybe a bit unfair to judge), and were a bit mediocre in terms of grip and speed.

The Vittorias were pretty fast for what they were (they’re from just before they rebranded away from Geax again, can’t remember the name but they were dirt cheap), feel nice and supple as Vittoria’s always have, but suffer a real lack of grip on wet roots compared to similar tyres from Maxxis and Schwalbe. It would have been OK on a less aggressive tread, but it seemed a bit of a mismatched compound/tread. Probably fine for XC loops though, and I’d certainly ride Vittorias again for XC stuff.

Have a look at MSC from Terraventure, our team have just swapped over to them from Vittorias and the initial feedback is excellent. I’ve got a Roller rear and RockRoller front and as my local riding is similar to yours I’d say they’d work very well indeed.

Another thumbs up for MSC I’ve run the Tractor which I found to be a good tough fastish alrounder .
At present running Vittoria Barzo 2.6. Ive had two punctures in the three months that i ran them. Needed a bacon strip to sort both.

The riding is local east midlands Berkshire loops that doesn’t involve too much rocky stuff, a few woods and singletrack. Sherwood Pines Swinley is probably about as technical as it gets for this bike.

Ardent front and rear for me for the above

Thanks for all the advice and pointers guys. I’ve not slashed a tyre on local rides for a long time so don’t think I’m particularly hard on them. The Bonty ones do appeal. I’ve got an XR3 on the rear of my full sus and that seems ok.

Specialized Ground control 2.3 are my defaults. Although I’m loving the Vittoria’s on my gravel bike so would be happy with something similar for XC too. The specialized only really seem good value when on sale.

I dunno if it’s because cheap tyres have gotten better, I’ve gotten better, or I’ve just become less fussy, but with a few exceptions I’ve been happy with quite a lot of cheap tyres recently. The only one I’ve not liked was some On-One Floaters in the wet which resulted in 3 big crashes in a single ride (they just kept wiping out completely whereas they’d been nice and drifty all summer).

SMORGASBORDs are £13, no Chuncky Monkeys for the front in stock at mo.

Ground Control/Fast Trak, both in grid. The non grid ones are flimsy.