Winter / Mud Tyres

LavaDom

Which do you rate and why?

I will be cycling through muddy Kent most of this winter and am frankly dazzled by the variety on offer.

I used to run Conti Cross Country 1.5s back in the day but these appear to have long been discontinued. I'm running non-tubeless Mavic 717s rim-wise.

All opinions good or bad appreciated.

Dom

cooldad

Unless it's 100% mud I wouldn't bother with mud tyres. And it never is.

lostboysaint

cooldad wrote:

Unless it's 100% mud I wouldn't bother with mud tyres. And it never is.

Maybe not where you ride.

Mud X (or XR Mud or whatever they're called now, or Panaracer Trailraker. Both offer fantastic grip in the mud, the Mud-X are better on the not so gloopy, so much so that some use them as three season tyres. The TR is a little slow-rolling.

Spec Storm Control seem to get good right ups and people seem to like them but the guys that have used them where we ride (predominantly chalky, muddy, flinty, rooty) have quickly gone back to either the MudX or TR.

cooldad

You ride in 100% mud? My condolences.

Mccraque

I use the bonty mud x's on my HT...just be careful if you are going to be getting any air in the harder spring months. I blew one off a rim doing so. But through the winter days they offer a good alround winter tyre and are fairly light too. My rear is on it's 3rd season and the front it's 2nd.

That said...on my other bike I only ever change the rear tyre. Conti Rubber Queen on front 365 days per year and then switch between a semi slick in summer or something a bit knobblier in winter. Have an old mountainking on the back at the moment. It does a job....not brilliantly - but have to use the mountain of old tyres I have laying around.

miss notax

I used a Panaracer Trailraker on the front for this years Mountain Mayhem which was an utter hideous mud-fest (as anyone who was there will testify) - it did pretty well under the circumstances

Mccraque

My friend swears by the Trailrakers....although I saw him so nearly wash out on tarmac in front of an oncoming Range Rover, it's put me off them as an "allrounder". Still to this day how his front wheel slid so far and then caught again, I'll never know.

Yes..I know they are not made for tarmac but you have to hit some to get anywhere when cycling straight from one's door....

miss notax

Oh yeah, I only ever use them when it's a guarenteed 99% mud ride Definitely not an all-rounder!

I usually run a minion / high roller which are kind of ok in mud (not as good as the TR though). If it's REALLY bad then nothing beats a Swampthing. I used one in Morzine last year slithering down DH trails in thick gloopy mud and they did me proud. Again, not tyres for everyday use though!

ADL

Schwalbe Dirty Dan 2.0, good grip and pretty light.

Vegman

Since about a month ago Trailraiker up front and up untill now a fire xc pro on the back, Trailraker now going on the back too after the latest deluge, fed up with the front and back being in different ruts!
I ride predominently SDW that chalky dirt sticks worse than the proverbial to a blanket, Trailrakers seem to clear it pretty well.
Cycle to all my local trails so I just take it steady on the tarmac and even steadier on those concreted surfaces that they use on the farms around here.

x-isle

Really depends on a few things, as there is never that perfect tyre.

On my Orange 5 I run with Nobby Nics (2.4) in the summer, however, I find as soon as theres a bit of static mud, they move around on top of the mud which isn't great. So, as soon as the weather changes, I bung on my Mud-X (2.0) which are fantastic at slicing through the mud finding grip down below the surface. However, there's a happy medium, as I ride a lot at Cannock Chase (not the trail centre) which has a lot of sand and gravel. The Mud-X also slice into the gravel and sand which is not what you want. So, as I said, happy medium.

Saying that, on my Apine 160 which is in Freeride spec so pretty heavy, I just stick to High Rollers all year as I don't really notice the difference to warrant changing the tyres to anything else. That and 36mm forks with skinny tyres just looks wrong!

LavaDom

Thanks to you all for your input.

I have decided on the XR Mud Team Issues in 1.8 folding. Nice and light at 520ish grams and narrow enough to find some hard ground under the slop.

Now, greenhorn question time - can clincher tyres fit to "normal" rims like my 717s?

x-isle

You'll have no probs mounting on a 717.

njee20

Now, greenhorn question time - can clincher tyres fit to "normal" rims like my 717s?

Virtually all tyres are clinchers, unless they're tubs, which you'd know about. I guess what you mean is whether you can fit tubeless tyres to your rims, to which it's a resounding yes.

LavaDom

Thank you.....

God I hate asking sucky questions. From what i hear it's the only way to learn.

Northwind

There's mud tyres and there's mud tyres. Frinstance, I don't see me using my Mud Xs again, they were great at mud but terrible at some other stuff, and even with a great mud tyre serious mud is still crap. So basically it made the good bits less good in return for making the crap bits still crap. That sort of riding just doesn't appeal, I'll take out the road bike instead.

But Conti's Baron is a fantastic tyre... Decent volume, excellent mud grip, but also works well on any other surface. Not quite as good as a Minion or similiar, but still very good. So you get less drawback.

x-isle

Perfect example of Horses for Courses.

Thing is, a tyre is very personal choice and of course can be different on different bikes (as per my comment above), unfortunatly, it's one of those things you can't try before you buy......

The Rookie

LavaDom wrote:

I have decided on the XR Mud Team Issues in 1.8 folding. Nice and light at 520ish grams and narrow enough to find some hard ground under the slop.

Good choice, I run one, traction is awesome, I run that on the back (480g on my scales) and a Fire XC pro up front.