Ha ha muddyfunster – beat me to it!

muddyfunster – Member

Also, some have said they are crap on anything other than wet stuff. Again, not true. Crap riders blaming their tyres maybe. Witness Fabien Barel’s 6th place in South Africa on a bone dry hard packed trail on wet screams.

When was that? He qualified 6th last year, in the wet, but I just had a wee google for raceday pics and it looks like he was on cuts.

haha, I see. I might get some but bollox to cutting them, if theyre too long tough shit would be my policy.

actually tough shit or swap for the barons

Just did a wee stocktake of the Tyre Mountain and found I’ve got a pair of 2.5 dualply Swampthings that I’ve not got much use for… a Maxxpro and a Supertacky. Also for some reason I’ve got 3 Hillbillies and I only need 2 so a spare there too.

I won’t do you a big sales job on the swampies cos frankly the reason I won’t use them again is that I don’t think they’re very good 😉 But if you’re interested let me know.

cheers northwind, but due to my education on this post, I’m thinking a set of der barons chilli (so far undecided as to 2.3 or 2.5, but thinking 2.3) and a set of spikes.

The 2.3’s are trail tyres, the black chilli compound is slightly different and the casing a lot lighter/thinner, deffo a trail tyre (albeit the best one imo). Bikediscount.de calls them derbarons but they are just barons. The der baron only comes in 2.5 size and is purely a dh tyre due to its weight and size. Both great but deffo different.

cheers stevede, I was on bikediscount, nearly got caught out there…
2.5 it is.

Re cut spikes, it’s not the whole tyre that gets trimmed. You would cut the centre knobs (which are way longer than normal tyres anyway) and leave the side knobs. This gives (relatively) good rolling resistance, with ferocious cornering grip, handy for many places/conditions

I cut the rear wet scream on my bike to slope the centre row of spikes. Slightly better pedalling and no real loss in braking. Cornering is still great. I rode them Thursday night at our local spot which was mostly frozen solid. A little squirmy in the fast corners but still pretty good.

Point there is, there’s no right or wrong way to do it. Some folks just want a less spiky spike, because they don’t like swampthings etc. Others want a faster spike. Some want a pretty low one, which work really well in loam (and allegedly in deep dust, though I’ve never had the chance to try). It’s not about making the tyre “better”, it’s just about changing its purpose a little.

(I don’t do it on DH tyres but I de-knobble my Nevegals for the trailbikes and that works really well for me, stops them clogging…)

Though o’course, up the page is spot on, most people do it because the pros and internet do it.