What the defacto cheapo reliable "trail" tyre these days?

Must be easy to mount tuneless (stans), for the rear and cheaper than a Schwalbe Ralph Snakeskin TLR.

Will be used in non- race trail centres e.g Wales.

?

On one smorgasbord.

Ardent?

HR2 Hans damn, reliable. Ardent on the rear or trail queen

Specialized Ground Control or Bontrager XR4 are two options that spring to mind. I think they both come in a fair chunk cheaper than the Schwalbe offerings (though not as cheap as Smorgasbord/Chunky Monkey).

Minion DHF on the Front, Ardent on the Back is hard to beat for an all round combo.

On one; chunky front, smorg rear

Great tyres, great price

Geax Saguaro? Cheap as chips.

Your TR Exo Maxxis of choice from Alltricks, with 10% off using PNMAR

Secondhand barely used ones off Pinkbike usually.

Stuff like Spesh Purg/Butchers seem to come up often.

Winter – Spesh Purgatory
Summer – WTB Bronson (or Spesh Eskar if it’s a slight chance of ‘more than damp’)

I’m not a fan of outright summer or mud tyres so those two options are my defaults for about 6 months of the year each.

Bontrager XR4 & XR3’s for me.

Chunky Monkey

Specialized Purgatory front, Ground Control rear. Fit and forget, ride all year round.

The only conditions they struggle in is deep sloppy mud. To be fair though, anything apart from a specialized mud tyre would be the same.

I ran a Butcher front, Purgatory rear this winter which worked great even on ice / hardpack snow. It rolled noticeably slower than the Purg / GC setup though.

Minion DHF on the Front, Ardent on the Back is hard to beat for an all round combo.

Been using this for a year, done uplifts, trail centres and natural stuff on it. I like it, though the Ardent is a bit too weak & thin for the abuse it gets, it’s also crap in mud but quite fun getting the back end out. It’s held up well though. Got a Minion SS on order so will see how that goes.

WTB Vigilante front and rear or Trail Boss rear…….Planet X currently have 40% off these till end of month.

WTF you never mentioned wheel size, how on earth are we meant to recommend a tyre without knowing the wheels size!!!!

XR4 front with a 3 or 2 on rear

On one; chunky front, smorg rear

Great tyres, great price

+1

Spesh Purgatory front and rear, fit and forget all yr round

Purgatory on the front? 😯
Maybe in Arizona…

Butcher front, Purgatory rear, and get used to a slidey back end in the slop.

Purgatory on the front?
Maybe in Arizona…

works fine in West of Scotland slop for me. I don’t go very fast though 🙂

I have one on the back and it loves to wheelspin and go side ways in the Shropshire slop and loam. Still like it though as it’s a kind of predictable sideways…

Dunno, mine’s fine around Surrey/Hampshire/Berkshire (and occasionally North Yorkshire) slop. It’s marketed as a damp conditions tyre and it works pretty well at that IME, not a mud tyre, but definitely not a fast/dry tyre.

on one chunky front, on one chunky or smog rear.

Butcher f, Purgatory r in winter.

Butcher f, Slaughter r in the dry times. (TBH I run a Rock Razor on the back but they’re not cheap and from my experience of Spesh tyres I imagine the Slaughter is as good).

spesh purg here too. less than 30 squid

Chunky Front, Smorg or Purg rear.

butcher fronts, purg rear.

i prefer minions f and back but specialised tyre casings are better so get teh vote.

I use conti x kings.

What the defacto cheapo reliable “trail” tyre these days?

I think we can conclude that this question has no answer

Whatevers on offer, don’t pay 50 quid for push bike tyres!

Hutchinson = Toro, Squale
Onza = Citius, Ibex
Maxxis = Minnion, HR2, Ardent
Bontrager = SE5, XR4, XR3
Spesh = Butcher, Purgatory
WTB = Vigilante, Trail Boss, Bronson
Panaracer = CG AC AM, Fire
Geax/Vittoria = Goma
Michelin = Wild RockR
On One = Chunky Monkey and Smorgasbord

To name a few. Theres loads of decent tyres out there for around 15-25 quid.

Same tyres year round for me

Solaris has a Maxxis combo – HR2/Ardent
El Mariachi has a Spesh combo – Butcher/Purgatory

i have a Toro RR Hardskin up front and its ace. It’s going in an Anthem so the Spec ground control 2.1 is looking the best at the moment.

Butcher f, Purgatory r in winter.

Butcher f, Slaughter r in the dry times. (TBH I run a Rock Razor on the back but they’re not cheap and from my experience of Spesh tyres I imagine the Slaughter is as good).

I use conti x kings.

Yes.

Although I wouldn’t touch anything other than a Black Chilli X King, which negates the cheap element. Also been running Spesh Storm Controls over the winter.

Currently using racesports which are black chilli and only 23 quid each in merlin at the moment.

Surely this topic needs a poll?

maxxis ardent or on one smorg and chunky monkey for trails

ralphs for going well quick, not usually fitted though in scotland.