For a long time there was Kenda…

Somewhere about 2003 I started riding Kenda tires, found various ones to work great for different things, and haven’t had much of a reason to switch brands.

This year it occurred to me that technology marches ever forward, so in March I decided that when I needed new tires I was going to branch out and try some other likely candidates for a while.

Since I ride 300-600 miles a month, 85-95% off road, between mileage and trail damage I go through tires quickly enough that even if I don’t like one (set) much, it won’t last long enough to worry.

… and then there was Wilderness Trail Bikes …

Back in March I started this with the WTB Prowler SS and Prowler MX tires, which I posted about on the MTBR Forums. The short of it on them was nice sticky surprisingly fast rolling but fast wearing and heavy tires. Worked well tubeless with a Stan’s conversion on DT 5.1d rims. Please hit the thread link for more info, pics, etc.

In late April I switched out to the WTB WierWolf LT 2.55 as the Prowler’s were thrashed. These had more air volume, and marginally faster tread, but didn’t have that “Je ne sai quoi” that made me want to keep them on my main ride. They got about three weeks of use and have been moved down to my hard-tail bike. They seem to be a good use there, with the large air volume they almost make up for the obscenely stiff frame that is the Fetish Fixation.

… and next up was Maxxis …

Which brings us almost back to the present, the next tires to go onto the Quasi were the Maxxis ADvantage 2.4 MaxxPro.

This is a single-compound rubber tire using the 60a MaxxPro compound. This is supposed to be a tackier more-grippy rubber with better wear characteristics than the most grippy “super tacky” compound.

According to the Maxxis page the tire weighs in at 1.83 pounds (or 830g), and while I have not weighed them I have no reason to disbelieve the rating. The tires that I’ve run the most over the last five or so years have been the Kenda Nevegal 2.5, which weigh in about 2 pounds (899g according to Kenda), and the ADvantage 2.4 feels the same to me both on and off the bike.

The ADvantage was also basically the same width as the Nevegal 2.5 - coming in around 55mm wide at the tread, mounted on a DT 5.1d rim.

Surprisingly, the ADvantage was noticably taller - leaving much less room to the arch of my fork lowers and to my frame’s rear triangle. There was no “rub” though, except when my rear suspension was at full compression - when the tire would rub against my front derailleur. Took me a while to trace down that sound, this was the first tire I’ve run that has done that!

If you use a bike computer, be sure to do a roll-out check on these tires to keep it calibrated properly, they are not your usual 2.4″ tires!

The Ride

The tire mostly lived up the the marketing blurb on the web, it was definitely a faster roller than the Nevegal, the straight-up traction for both acceleration and braking were fabulous. The hard-over cornering also worked well, the thick shoulder knobs holding up well to speed and an almost-clydesdale rider.

The tire traction did fall short in one area though. If you look at the tread design you can clearly see there is a transitional area where the amount of rubber hitting the trail decreases as you lean partially over. When the tire was running in this area it would easily slide laterally, or drift, through turns. Coming from the high traction tires that preceeded it this gave me a few startling moments as I adapted. The good part of this drift is that both front and rear tires seemed to drift equally, and as I ended up leaning more on the tire as it drifted it would come over onto the shoulder knobs and bite again.

In the end I figured out how to make this a fun part of the sport, controlling the drift, even though I’m sure it did nothing to decrease tire wear. Swish-swoosh through the twisty-turny-flats as it were.

I further found that if I applied a skill from Alpine Skiing that I could further control the tires and maintain more momentum through turns - specifically by “setting the edge” so that I could “carve the turn.” Basically, I would use a little body english to flick the bike a bit more as I entered the turn, dropping my center of mass down and leaning the bike over a bit more, forcing the transition knobs to give way quickly and put the contact mostly onto the shoulders. Then roll on the edges through the turn.

With the large casing, large air volume, deep tread, and tacky rubber, the tire held a good line in a huge variety of trail conditions.

Everything from dry-over-hardpack (such as the ever dusty Walnut Creek park trails), to loose-soft-off-camber (such as Thumper), to hard-edge rockiness (City Park trail with its endless limestone ledges), to the smörgåsbord that is the Barton Creek Greenbelt trail network, the tires did not disappoint.

I was not able to evaluate them for wet conditions handling though, we have not had enough rain this summer to keep any trails wet enough to ride in that condition - the few that can be ridden wet.

How does it Wear?

I put a pair of these on my Quasi around the middle of June.

Unsurprisingly for a softer compound tire, it wears pretty quickly as a rear tire.

As in noticably quickly.

More quickly than the Nevegal 2.5 Stick-E folding tires I’d been running for years.

As in four weeks quickly, find a new tire, today!

By the middle of July the rear tire was starting to look pretty thrashed, so I got a new one for the shelf so that I could switch it out “RSN.”

The center line tread blocks were about half gone, which is okay, but what was starting to get into my “trade it out” zone was that the shoulder knobs that I was relying so much upon for cornering and off-camber trail holding were starting to scallop-out on the inside, folding away when needed, and letting go. That’s just a drag in my book, so while it wasn’t QUITE gone it was obviously really close to time to swap it out.

The front tire was wearing reasonably well, so I figured the normal ratio of 2:1 rear tires would be about right, and I’d be riding the ADvantage through or at least into August.

The sidewalls of the tires held up well. Lots of limestone rocks of various types have been hammered, lots of general trail crud. Lots of embedded limestone to hit the sidewalls. Fair amounts of crashing (I like to keep in practice). The wide tread design of the tires does a good job of protecting the sidewall, even with the slightly-narrow-for-the-tire rims the sidewalls did not balloon out beyond the tread.

The tires took to being used tubeless (DT 5.1d rim, Stan’s rubber strip, 1 thin Velox strip over the spokes) very easily. They mounted up easily, I set the bead with some compressed air, and topped them off with the floor pump. No worries. I doubt that I could have done it all with a floor pump though as the bead was just too loose over the rim strip for that to work. I could have probably built up another layer of Velox under the rim strip, and that probably would have made it floor-pump worthy. It also would probably have made it a PITA to mount/dismount the tires.

Final (?) Word

In the end what do I have to say about them?

Well, I liked them, but I didn’t love them.

If I needed big tires and they were the only ones available I’d be just fine riding them, but they’re NOT on the top of my list to purchase again.

They’re heavier tires so only people that are accustomed to rolling with bigger meats should bother playing with them. If you are accustomed to running 2.2-2.35-ish tires from most manufacturers do *NOT* consider these in the same classification. These compare more to the 2.5 crowd like the bigger Kenda and WTB tires.

Did I mention they are really tall? Consider test-fitting before purchase unless you have a big bike. Like a bike designed to handle 3″ tires.

Of the “big meat” classification I think they’re faster rolling than most, and the only tradeoff they make you take is the transitional drifting.

If you were riding places that were mostly bermed this would be a non-factor.

If Maxxis made the transitional area more knob-filled slightly, or
maybe took the angle-siped knobs and made them more robust, it may
handle that transition more evenly. Of course, they also may behave
exactly like the designers want them to.

I’ve never done it, but I’m betting that these would be great tires for riding places like Whistler Mountain Resort (think A Line) where the trail is highly sculpted. Likewise I’d expect them to do well at slow speed technical trails, nice and grabby for both acceleration and braking seem to work well here.

I would NOT bother riding them some place like Moab, or much of the sandstone terrain in Arizona similar to what I’ve sampled. They’d work well enough there, and their sizable tread would do a good job of protecting the sidewalls from rock cuts and cactus spines, but the wear rate would be high.

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