Why even bother with BRR (at least for mtb tires)… it doesn’t matter how fast is the tire on the drum, it’s about how fast is on (various) terrain…
Maybe (just maybe) you can compare road tire vs road tire on drum to just get “feeling” but with mountain bike tire is completly different story…
I’m glad someone said it.
While not perfect, It’s more objective than nothing. And, they also test sidewall and tread puncture resistance.
I would like to see a more MTB-oriented test (lower pressures, at the least a “textured” drum) and I’m getting sick of not being able to get MTB tires tested in favor of testing a new flavor of the same road tire for the 10th time.
Sorry but this isn’t great logic.
You have a problem with many variables.
You control a number of them and test the majority and come out with reliable conclusions.
The presence of those now reintroduced variables may change the picture, but they do not a-priori eliminate those conclusions.
Especially since tests that have been conducted in a less scientific way but including said variables (e.g. power/hr runs outdoors) also correlate with those conclusions.
But I mean if you don’t like the results because your favourite tyre did badly then I hope everyone else I race feels the same way =].
Ahhh, one of the most heard misconceptions in regard to tires.
There are two great Gravel and MTB tire myths I see perpetuated often. Probably because it seems intuitive for people to harp on but in reality if they’d look behind the “why” a tire rolls and experiences resistances as a compound (haha - pun not intended) metric they wouldn’t perpetuate it.
The first myth is: the smaller the knobs (or even a slick) the faster the tire. → wrong! It’s overwhelmingly the compound and the casing which makes a tire fast. There are many slicks / small knob tires slower than more profiled treads.
And the second myth is: rolling resistance / drum tests don’t relate to the “real world”. → wrong! They do. They rank tires according to their hysteresis losses and as such the fastest tire in the test will be the fastest over any terrain. You can see it when people do actual roll down or better yet, Chung Virtual Elevation Method Testing in the field over various terrain, including XC Terrain like grass, hard pack and so on. The tires topping the drum test results are also coming on top in such tests. What is to be expected because also the impedance losses are a influenced to a great deal by the compound and casing of the tire.
Great point! I wish somebody would collect a lot of these comparisons so we could point to a single place that shows the relationship!
I did a test last weekend and totally agree with Huegelreiter that the tyre compound is the most important factor for rolling resistance.
I tested one of the fastest mtb tyres tested by BRR, the Continental RaceKing Protection Black Chili Compound 2.2, front and rear, rolling down a fire road, and it was a lot faster rolling than my previous tyres, the Pirelli Scorpion XC RC Lite 2.4’s.
Immediately after I tested Kenda Rush Pro SCT 2.4 front and rear and these were a little faster than the Contis, while having bigger knobs.
If anyone is interested, I posted the results on the MTBR forum under the race tyre thread.
In short, the Rush compound seems to be great, which should result in low rolling resistance BRR drum test results.
If we can only get it tested. Currently losing out to the Rene Herse for this month…
We need a few more votes for the Kenda Rush to get it back into the “winning” position. So close!
There was a suggestion above to buy an extra pro membership to get extra votes. I might actually consider it too at the end of the month if it’s close.
Like in post 1109? Or are you looking for something different?
“Immediately after I tested Kenda Rush Pro SCT 2.4 front and rear and these were a little faster than the Contis, while having bigger knobs.”
You have just motivated me to look a bit closer into this tire with that. 
Looks nice. Weighs very little (I would go for the 2.2" version) and the knob pattern reminds me a bit of the Maxxis Ikon I also like (but they are not that fast). But with more pronounced side knobs (which I tend not to like so much).
Regardless: Pondering whether I should just by a pair to test myself. But I also found quite a bit of customer ratings on not so great quality control in regard of roundness or other stuff. Hmmm.
In the light of the post from @wake just above yours: would you or anyone else know of some good tests of this tire? (Good as in: not your usual underpaid bike journo just randomly throwing adjectives into a text generator but pieces were some recognizable effort went in)
I think I remember a tour test for a Kenda xc tire saying it was pretty quick, but I can’t find it anywhere, and I don’t remember which tire it was
Thanks Joe!
Post 1109 has raw data (record of each run), not aggregated data (summary showing the average differences between tire types). In addition, there are several (appreciated) caveats because of the wheel switching. It’s missing the BRR summary data to show that the BRR values are consistent with real-world testing. And finally, it’s the 1,100th entry in a thread - so it’s difficult to access for people, and not updated as more results come in…
I’m looking for something that’s aggregated, shows both real world and BRR results, and gives me confidence that the real-world testing methodology is repeatable and reliable. Does that help?
My subscription lapsed ages ago but every time this discussion comes up I say I’m going to go renew it just to cast that vote, but I always forget. Is the cutoff the end of a calendar month?
Actually it does and thanks. I bought the domaine wattmonster.club and hope to put my data there some day. The big problem is finding the time to get the laps done but I could see testing something every week in the future. So far from the limited tests I’ve done the results are similar to bicyclerollingresistance.com but much more testing is needed.
Joe
I wouldnt use the ray/ralph as fun tires. They are fast, but durable they are not. Maybe consider spec. ground controls? I swap between them and RR combo for racing. Sometimes Fastrak in the rear instead.
By what margin? I’ve thought about the subscription, but with the tires that get tested, I’m not that interested.
Yes - end of the calendar month.
Actually, as of right now it’s back to tied (and winning the tiebreaker) with the Rene Herse Fleecer Ridge TC 29x2.2.
18 Days Left so if anyone is considering voting, joining, etc. - probably better to wait right until the end.
I wish there was, but sadly I haven’t found any…