I have been riding mountain for 10 years and use to thing the biggest knobs and softest rubber the better. I live in the Northeast and we have a lot of packed soil that the smaller knobs work great on! After running nothing but Minions and Ardents I have had great luck with the less aggressive Schwalbe stuff like racing ralph/ray, thunder burt, and nobby nics. What the rolling resistance tests don’t seem to cover is the energy lost during impacts from roots and rocks. The soft Maxxis 3C tires seem to zap energy where the Schwalbe tires with the red or blue compounds don’t. The Maxxis dual compound is not bad, but still not as fast as the Germans!
When the conditions are very wet and greasy the soft rubber rubber like Maxxis 3C and Schwalbe soft really make the magic happen!
Maxxis user only on MTB for more than 15 years. Larsen TT, Ignitor, Crossmark and now the Ikon are fanstastic. On road bike never used maxxis, general idea that on this Continental is the deal.
I’ve run every brand of xc tire. The fastest to me were the racing Ralph’s, but those costed $90 each, punctured VERY easily, and wore out extremely fast.
Next up in best rolling resistance in my experience was maxxis. Grip and braking were about the same, but in 5 years I’ve yet to flat on a maxxis, and they last an entire season for me, and only cost about $40.
What are you running as front tire? Granted, this is really trail-specific but imho Maxxis is lacking an XC tire between the Ikon and Forekaster/Rekon in 2.35 or 2.4 that‘s around 700g.
At least for gravity they still are the benchmark for me, even though I acknowledge a lot of it might be attributed to the familiarity of the handling. The maxxis 2ply casing is unmatched in flat protection, supple track feel and the 60a and 3c and 42a compound for predictability and a benign behaviour at the edge of grip. Quite the opposite of Conti‘s wooden casing that feels crap and tends to let go unannounced. Early iterations of their DH line up might as well have been called the Kato.
For sheer grip the aggressive Schwalbe line up is a match, but the multi-compound wears out brutally fast. On dry rocky drifty tracks I’ve went through a set on a single race weekend. Even worse, the soft compound sits on top of a harder compound, so a tire might look at first like it’s been hardly broken in, but the fun is already gone and it grips like a stick of butter.
So yea, for gravity Maxxis all day long, because they’re the best Allrounder Package and I they don’t stab me in the back.
I’ve found Rekon + to be really great for everything apart from sloppy mud. We are on clay here but most trail centres run hardback stone and rock and the woods can be very loamy/leafy.
On the other hand the Ikon’s one of my bikes came with did not impress for anything bar hardback, and even then didn’t inspire confidence.
A swap to similar looking Specialized XC tyres (forget the name) was a revelation. I now switch between those and Storm Control. Big were huge bargains.
