The future of MTB tyres...radial?

[MingtheMerciless]

https://www.schwalbe.com/en/Shredda-Fro ... NwUGRGMsQH

[weeksy]

I don't actually know what Radial means in tyres. Educate me please

[MingtheMerciless]

Marketing BS here. Basically larger contact patch and better tracking over bumps for same air pressure but slightly draggier.

https://www.schwalbe.com/en/radialtires ... uDR6i3oz_0

[weeksy]

Mmmmm it all reads well... funny enough i've just fitted a Magic Mary to my Status as the Conti was very slow rolling, but it was/is a super soft DH version.

[Mr Moofo]

Marketing BS here. Basically larger contact patch and better tracking over bumps for same air pressure but slightly draggier.

https://www.schwalbe.com/en/radialtires ... uDR6i3oz_0

Will you be able to put bottomless token in the tyre to fine tune ?

What a load of bollocks - might make a difference to the Antherton clan but very few would notice

[weeksy]

Maybe @mboy can grab some for the boy to test and see

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I don't actually know what Radial means in tyres. Educate me please

In a radial tyre the cords run at right angles to the travel of the tyre (radially), making the cords shorter and lighter, but not as rigid as cross plus, where the cords are layed diaganolly to each other and crossover, the proper name for the cords is plys, hence cross ply.

[mboy]

Will you be able to put bottomless token in the tyre to fine tune ?

I apologise, my irony meter is going off the chart! I really don't expect you meant for this though, so let me explain as to why that is...

So... I doubt you know this already, but you do realise that basically, this is how the tyre industry views tyre inserts pretty much, as "volume spacers for tyres"?!?! There is a very reason that tyres are still pneumatic rather than solid and there is also a very good reason most of them are now 2.4-2.6" wide on MTB's these days too... Reducing the air volume of the tyre by fitting a tyre insert is at best not an ideal situation but one done to mitigate against damage to the rim/tyre through running lower pressures and/or to stop the tyre from burping or rolling off the rim because of the same low pressures. I actually had a bit of a tech talk with Matt from Rimpact (who I have a great deal of respect for, he's a good engineer, although I do believe his tyre inserts were/are only a solution to problem that wouldn't be necessary with better tyre design in the first place) @ ArdRock last year about the TruTune "activated carbon" tech that they use in their fork insert to mimic a larger air volume (rather than to reduce it), and if it could effectively used inside a tyre insert... The consensus after mulling it over was that it possibly could be done, but it would likely be so prohibitively expensive to produce as to make sure even if it could be produced in any volume, nobody would buy it.

Now... Onto the tyres...

If you haven't done so yet, watch this video... It explains a lot more than I can just typing on here to be honest...



Carl in the video is our MTB tyre product manager. A very astute man (who's actually been with the company for a lot longer than he looks like he has) who really understands how to make an MTB tyre work... Don't for a second think this is all marketing over substance, if there's anything I have learnt over the last 5yrs working for a German company it's that there can often be things that get lost in translation when it comes to the marketing content, but never to underestimate the substance... The Tacky Chan tyre for instance, had 11 World Cup Downhill victories to its name before it was even released to the public! These products are often 2-3 yrs in the making before they get released, going through several iterations and thousands of hours of testing under some of the worlds best riders before they get signed off for production... This isn't somebody with a hooky copy of AutoCAD sketching what they think might be a half handy tread pattern based on looks alone, coming up with a catchy name and logo for it, then getting CST/Duro/Kenda to make 10 thousand of them for them without it ever having been so much as test ridden prior to getting a full production run!

I am actually awaiting a tech question regarding the use of the term "radial" for the new carcass construction (given it uses some elements from radial car/motorbike tyres, but ironically, not the radial belts themselves) from Carl, which I hope to be able to better explain to people when I have it, but he has just been out in Madeira actually riding his own bike for a week rather than spending much of his time working with some of the worlds best MTB athletes for a change, so I expect it'll take him a few days to catch up with his email inbox...

Basically larger contact patch and better tracking over bumps for same air pressure but slightly draggier.

This is the major upshot of it all yes... Why is this important? Well because all of a sudden, your air pressure is now a useful tuning tool again! How so you ask...? Well typically with MTB tyres, to get them tough enough to last the course, they have become quite stiff and not particularly compliant, even at low(ish) pressures. An unwanted side effect of making them more puncture resistant is to introduce that stiffness to the carcass in the case of a traditional "crossply" tyre... By altering the angle of the layup of the carcass plies, they have been able to create a tyre that is no less strong (it is no lighter, like for like, as it has no less material in it) but yet it is noticeably more compliant... Which is where the increase in contract patch size for a given pressure comes in...

Of course, you increase the contact patch, and you also increase the drag... So now you can up your pressures, to reduce the contact patch to roughly the size it was on the old tyre, and you might run 30-40% more pressure in order to do this... The upshot of this is that the increased pressure increases the sidewall support, decreases the likelihood of dinging the rim or burping a tyre, and minimises the need for a tyre insert... Win/win I'd say!

Beyond that though... You now have a window of opportunity inbetween your old pressure (but significantly increased grip & drag), and your new pressure of approx 30-40% higher (where you have the same grip and drag you had with the older carcass at the lower pressure but now a lot more support), where you can now experiment with your pressures to get to your own desired improvement compromise.

For instance, I chatted to Jack Carthy (reigning and multiple UCI World Trials Champ) about the radial carcass at the Malverns, he's loving it. He runs the same pressures he did before but is loving the extra grip he gets from the larger contact patch, the extra drag doesn't concern him for trials riding. Thos I know who've ridden them in the Alps so far were grateful for being able to run higher pressures, minimising the need for inserts and worries about dinging rims or rolling the tyre, and maintained the same grip levels that they were used to... Perhaps my most "imposter syndrome" moment recently though was when Hans Rey came over to me at the Malverns (I still have a copy of Monkey See, Monkey Do, his 1996 video featuring the chimp he used to own, on VHS at home, he has been an idol of mine since the early 90's!) to rave about how much he loves the new radial carcass and how he can tune the pressures so much more depending on what kind of riding he is doing, than he could on the older crossply carcass tyres...

I am not name dropping to sound cool or try and impress anyone by the way... This is literally my job, to talk to people about our products, and sometimes that means working with some of the very best riders going...

Basically, these radial tyres are making waves in the industry, and have got people talking about MTB tyre tech like I haven't heard in a very long time! Which certainly feels like a good place to be for us after hearing so much hype about the Conti Kryptotal and Argotal tyres for the last 18 months or so...

What a load of bollocks - might make a difference to the Antherton clan but very few would notice

I dunno who the Antherton's are, but the Athertons work very closely with Continental, so I doubt very much it would benefit them at all... Especially considering many of their competitors, the likes of Amaury Pierron, Tahnee Seagrave and Myriam Nicole have been putting these tyres on the top of the podium already at times this season...

That said... Arguably the benefits of these tyres are even greater for the average weekend warrior than they are for the pro's. The pro's already operate within a very tiny window of opportunity performance wise, they can often generate grip from less aggressive tyres in less grippy situations than you or I can because their talent and ability to pick a smooth line far outweighs ours! For years, even at over 90kg, I have essentially run my tyres as low as I can feasibly get away with most of the time but just high enough to avoid burping or rolling the tyre, which is typically around 20/21psi in the front and about 24/25psi in the rear on a 2.4" tyre... Any lower and i'll either roll the tyres, ding the rim or pinch flat... Without an insert that is! And running inserts robs you of air volume in the tyre, thus comfort and grip... The ability now to experiment with up to about 28psi front and as much as 32psi rear in a new radial carcass tyre and still have the same grip levels as I have now, is incredibly appealing to me (and I'm as middle of the road amateur a rider as you could wish to ride with)...

TLDR...? They're good... VERY good... Believe the hype! Every genuine tech improvement in MTB has been poo pooed at some point by people who didn't realise the opportunity the tech presented (dropper posts, longer/slacker geometry, tubeless, 1x drivetrains, etc etc.)...

Anyway... @weeksy I have PM'ed you... Hopefully it's useful... We need to go for a ride sometime soon!

[weeksy]

Verrrrrry interesting..

The boy is 19F 21R generally, having moved up from 18/20 in the past few months due to compressing massively on big stuff, he's only 64kg but he's hitting big and hard features at some races. Part of me would like to move him up a few PSI more actually but summer race season isn't really the time for experimenting, that'll wait until winter.
But more grip is more grip and more grip is more speed. So there's deffo a level of interest in any technology that would or could offer more grip and speed...

Getting him off the Conti for a day is the challenge.. but like i say, over winter, that's possible.

[Mr Moofo]

Will you be able to put bottomless token in the tyre to fine tune ?

I apologise, my irony meter is going off the chart! I really don't expect you meant for this though, so let me explain as to why that is...

So... I doubt you know this already, but you do realise that basically, this is how the tyre industry views tyre inserts pretty much, as "volume spacers for tyres"?!?! There is a very reason that tyres are still pneumatic rather than solid and there is also a very good reason most of them are now 2.4-2.6" wide on MTB's these days too... Reducing the air volume of the tyre by fitting a tyre insert is at best not an ideal situation but one done to mitigate against damage to the rim/tyre through running lower pressures and/or to stop the tyre from burping or rolling off the rim because of the same low pressures. I actually had a bit of a tech talk with Matt from Rimpact (who I have a great deal of respect for, he's a good engineer, although I do believe his tyre inserts were/are only a solution to problem that wouldn't be necessary with better tyre design in the first place) @ ArdRock last year about the TruTune "activated carbon" tech that they use in their fork insert to mimic a larger air volume (rather than to reduce it), and if it could effectively used inside a tyre insert... The consensus after mulling it over was that it possibly could be done, but it would likely be so prohibitively expensive to produce as to make sure even if it could be produced in any volume, nobody would buy it.

Now... Onto the tyres...

If you haven't done so yet, watch this video... It explains a lot more than I can just typing on here to be honest...



Carl in the video is our MTB tyre product manager. A very astute man (who's actually been with the company for a lot longer than he looks like he has) who really understands how to make an MTB tyre work... Don't for a second think this is all marketing over substance, if there's anything I have learnt over the last 5yrs working for a German company it's that there can often be things that get lost in translation when it comes to the marketing content, but never to underestimate the substance... The Tacky Chan tyre for instance, had 11 World Cup Downhill victories to its name before it was even released to the public! These products are often 2-3 yrs in the making before they get released, going through several iterations and thousands of hours of testing under some of the worlds best riders before they get signed off for production... This isn't somebody with a hooky copy of AutoCAD sketching what they think might be a half handy tread pattern based on looks alone, coming up with a catchy name and logo for it, then getting CST/Duro/Kenda to make 10 thousand of them for them without it ever having been so much as test ridden prior to getting a full production run!

I am actually awaiting a tech question regarding the use of the term "radial" for the new carcass construction (given it uses some elements from radial car/motorbike tyres, but ironically, not the radial belts themselves) from Carl, which I hope to be able to better explain to people when I have it, but he has just been out in Madeira actually riding his own bike for a week rather than spending much of his time working with some of the worlds best MTB athletes for a change, so I expect it'll take him a few days to catch up with his email inbox...

Basically larger contact patch and better tracking over bumps for same air pressure but slightly draggier.

This is the major upshot of it all yes... Why is this important? Well because all of a sudden, your air pressure is now a useful tuning tool again! How so you ask...? Well typically with MTB tyres, to get them tough enough to last the course, they have become quite stiff and not particularly compliant, even at low(ish) pressures. An unwanted side effect of making them more puncture resistant is to introduce that stiffness to the carcass in the case of a traditional "crossply" tyre... By altering the angle of the layup of the carcass plies, they have been able to create a tyre that is no less strong (it is no lighter, like for like, as it has no less material in it) but yet it is noticeably more compliant... Which is where the increase in contract patch size for a given pressure comes in...

Of course, you increase the contact patch, and you also increase the drag... So now you can up your pressures, to reduce the contact patch to roughly the size it was on the old tyre, and you might run 30-40% more pressure in order to do this... The upshot of this is that the increased pressure increases the sidewall support, decreases the likelihood of dinging the rim or burping a tyre, and minimises the need for a tyre insert... Win/win I'd say!

Beyond that though... You now have a window of opportunity inbetween your old pressure (but significantly increased grip & drag), and your new pressure of approx 30-40% higher (where you have the same grip and drag you had with the older carcass at the lower pressure but now a lot more support), where you can now experiment with your pressures to get to your own desired improvement compromise.

For instance, I chatted to Jack Carthy (reigning and multiple UCI World Trials Champ) about the radial carcass at the Malverns, he's loving it. He runs the same pressures he did before but is loving the extra grip he gets from the larger contact patch, the extra drag doesn't concern him for trials riding. Thos I know who've ridden them in the Alps so far were grateful for being able to run higher pressures, minimising the need for inserts and worries about dinging rims or rolling the tyre, and maintained the same grip levels that they were used to... Perhaps my most "imposter syndrome" moment recently though was when Hans Rey came over to me at the Malverns (I still have a copy of Monkey See, Monkey Do, his 1996 video featuring the chimp he used to own, on VHS at home, he has been an idol of mine since the early 90's!) to rave about how much he loves the new radial carcass and how he can tune the pressures so much more depending on what kind of riding he is doing, than he could on the older crossply carcass tyres...

I am not name dropping to sound cool or try and impress anyone by the way... This is literally my job, to talk to people about our products, and sometimes that means working with some of the very best riders going...

Basically, these radial tyres are making waves in the industry, and have got people talking about MTB tyre tech like I haven't heard in a very long time! Which certainly feels like a good place to be for us after hearing so much hype about the Conti Kryptotal and Argotal tyres for the last 18 months or so...

What a load of bollocks - might make a difference to the Antherton clan but very few would notice

I dunno who the Antherton's are, but the Athertons work very closely with Continental, so I doubt very much it would benefit them at all... Especially considering many of their competitors, the likes of Amaury Pierron, Tahnee Seagrave and Myriam Nicole have been putting these tyres on the top of the podium already at times this season...

That said... Arguably the benefits of these tyres are even greater for the average weekend warrior than they are for the pro's. The pro's already operate within a very tiny window of opportunity performance wise, they can often generate grip from less aggressive tyres in less grippy situations than you or I can because their talent and ability to pick a smooth line far outweighs ours! For years, even at over 90kg, I have essentially run my tyres as low as I can feasibly get away with most of the time but just high enough to avoid burping or rolling the tyre, which is typically around 20/21psi in the front and about 24/25psi in the rear on a 2.4" tyre... Any lower and i'll either roll the tyres, ding the rim or pinch flat... Without an insert that is! And running inserts robs you of air volume in the tyre, thus comfort and grip... The ability now to experiment with up to about 28psi front and as much as 32psi rear in a new radial carcass tyre and still have the same grip levels as I have now, is incredibly appealing to me (and I'm as middle of the road amateur a rider as you could wish to ride with)...

TLDR...? They're good... VERY good... Believe the hype! Every genuine tech improvement in MTB has been poo pooed at some point by people who didn't realise the opportunity the tech presented (dropper posts, longer/slacker geometry, tubeless, 1x drivetrains, etc etc.)...

Anyway... @weeksy I have PM'ed you... Hopefully it's useful... We need to go for a ride sometime soon!

I need to buy some quickly to address some of my issues caused by lack of skills.
In the original quote I wasn’t being serious.

But I did always think that inserts were a bit of an odd concept for day to day use.

[weeksy]

Serious question- will the average Santa Cruz rider in the Surrey Hill notice any difference?

I'd love to stick that sort of rider (including myself in this) on a blind tyre test down a few trails and see if anyone can actually honestly notice a difference with ANY tyre. Obviously having the boy i've seen what tyres can or can't do and he gets WAY more grip than me out of far worse tyres, so would i even notice/care... at all... EVER ? Mmmmm i do question that.

I reckon to most of us it's confirmation bias.

That said, i do feel some of my crashes at Dyfi a few months ago were potentially as much down to the tyre as my lack of skills. I'd love to go back and try with the SSDH Conti on and see if i actually had any more grip.

[Mr Moofo]

@mboy
The Anthertons are the clumsy fingered cousins of the Athertons…

It always seemed strange to me that folks spent hours debating bottomless tokens and fine tuning is forks but then filled their tyres full of pool noodles - effectively reducing the benefits of a pneumatic tyre.
As an old and chunky rider anything that reduces tyre drag on a manual bike is a bonus. It’s not such an issue on an eeb.
I tend to run about 24psi front and 28-30 psi on the back. And after talking with you, a downhill carcass on the back which has resolved the puncture issues (that and using better tyres than the Bontrager XR5/x4)
I assume once this method comes online then all manufacturers will follow, or is there a patent?


Weeksy - I am with you on the tyre thing. I remember being admonished in Morzine when I suggested that tyre made very little difference to the recreational rider ( and pressures were more important)
However since they I discovered Bontrager tyres which were very fragile and slidey. Even with my limited skills.
They were dangerous on damp chalk

[weeksy]

I assume once this method comes online then all manufacturers will follow, or is there a patent?


Weeksy - I am with you on the thing. I remember being admonished in Morzine when I suggested that tyre made very little difference to the recreational rider ( and pressures were more important)
However since they I discovered Bontrager tyres which were very fragile and slidey. Even with my limited skills.
They were dangerous on damp chalk

According to Pinkbike the tecnhology isn't patentable... but i didn't see why not.

I think there's always going to be better and worse tyres. But whether someone like you or me could tell the difference between an Assegai, MM, Argotal, that i'm not sure....

I (and the boy) ran a bonty G5 for a while on his Session as it came with it... they were pretty good in truth. I've had XR4s and maybe a 3 something that were not as good though.

[mboy]

Serious question- will the average Santa Cruz rider in the Surrey Hill notice any difference?

Simply put… The worse the rider, the more there is to gain from better tyres…

The point then though is whether the rider is wired to notice (and thus benefit from) the difference or not…

Tyres are an extremely personal subject. What suits one person doesn’t necessarily suit another, so “better” can be subjective…

I am, for whatever reason, hardwired to be absolutely princess and the pea about tyres, bike setup etc… Everything needs to be absolutely spot on for me for my perfect run, and even then, I am absolutely firmly in the middle of the pack at best… Probably why I haven’t raced for years and just try and enjoy a ride as it is! There are a great many better riders than myself who don’t notice their tyres or their setup to the same degree as I do, but even then, lucky for them!

If you believe that you generally can’t tell the difference between one tyre and another, between 20 and 25pdi, between your rebound being too fast and your rebound being too slow, and hence have convinced yourself that it makes no difference and that everything is just marketing guff… I suggest you get out there and have a play before writing everything off! You might be right, you might well be able to sleep on a bed of nails and not notice it… But I suspect given the opportunity and the resources of a proper mechanic, a selection of tyres, an uplift and a clock for a day or two, you wouldn’t fail to make some significant improvements, and the likelihood that you’d come home raving about how important setup is and waxing lyrical about one particular tyre or another, is very high indeed…

[mboy]

Verrrrrry interesting..

The boy is 19F 21R generally, having moved up from 18/20 in the past few months due to compressing massively on big stuff, he's only 64kg but he's hitting big and hard features at some races. Part of me would like to move him up a few PSI more actually but summer race season isn't really the time for experimenting, that'll wait until winter.
But more grip is more grip and more grip is more speed. So there's deffo a level of interest in any technology that would or could offer more grip and speed...

Getting him off the Conti for a day is the challenge.. but like i say, over winter, that's possible.

IMO, the lighter the rider, the more they will stand to benefit from the radial carcass…

[MingtheMerciless]

Verrrrrry interesting..

The boy is 19F 21R generally, having moved up from 18/20 in the past few months due to compressing massively on big stuff, he's only 64kg but he's hitting big and hard features at some races. Part of me would like to move him up a few PSI more actually but summer race season isn't really the time for experimenting, that'll wait until winter.
But more grip is more grip and more grip is more speed. So there's deffo a level of interest in any technology that would or could offer more grip and speed...

Getting him off the Conti for a day is the challenge.. but like i say, over winter, that's possible.

IMO, the lighter the rider, the more they will stand to benefit from the radial carcass…

stop it, stop it, stop it...........

[weeksy]

Serious question- will the average Santa Cruz rider in the Surrey Hill notice any difference?

Simply put… The worse the rider, the more there is to gain from better tyres…

The point then though is whether the rider is wired to notice (and thus benefit from) the difference or not…

Tyres are an extremely personal subject. What suits one person doesn’t necessarily suit another, so “better” can be subjective…

I am, for whatever reason, hardwired to be absolutely princess and the pea about tyres, bike setup etc… Everything needs to be absolutely spot on for me for my perfect run, and even then, I am absolutely firmly in the middle of the pack at best… Probably why I haven’t raced for years and just try and enjoy a ride as it is! There are a great many better riders than myself who don’t notice their tyres or their setup to the same degree as I do, but even then, lucky for them!

If you believe that you generally can’t tell the difference between one tyre and another, between 20 and 25pdi, between your rebound being too fast and your rebound being too slow, and hence have convinced yourself that it makes no difference and that everything is just marketing guff… I suggest you get out there and have a play before writing everything off! You might be right, you might well be able to sleep on a bed of nails and not notice it… But I suspect given the opportunity and the resources of a proper mechanic, a selection of tyres, an uplift and a clock for a day or two, you wouldn’t fail to make some significant improvements, and the likelihood that you’d come home raving about how important setup is and waxing lyrical about one particular tyre or another, is very high indeed…

It's a tricky question isn't it... I've always felt i had my bouncy bits 'right' but putting the telemetry stuff on there told me i was running WAY soft on the rear. Now this is where it gets complex, i prefer the way it was.... soft and plush. But there's no doubt that the correct settings are more stable and faster as well as more planted. But which is right, which is wrong... there's a question.

I don't think i can massively notice a couple of psi in tyres though.

[MingtheMerciless]

Bonty XR2's, which I ran on the polystyrene bicycle (c) which was actually made of ally, were great on the Sarf Dahns until I ran them in the rain at inaugural Brighton Big Dog, where it rained, a lot.

I like a lot of front grip so run a Kenda Piner on the front of the Curtis for confidence and I think I am faster on it than the Maxxis Rekon (my times down my favourite trail in the forest slowly improved despite the trail aging and braking bumping). I'd run the Rekon for its lower rolling resistance if I was doing XC only.

Lets not talk about the time I borrowed Mrs M's Levo of pain to try out her new Assagi front that replaced the DHF, I was setting quick times all over the forest right up until I took the piss and high sided down a bank into a tree denting my Troy Lee lid.......

I can tell the difference between 26 and 20 psi in the front but not say 19psi and 22 psi.

[crust]

I was always a bit 'meh' about tyres and pressures, running mainly nobby nics simply because I didn't know any different.

Then I did a wet day in FOD on the eeb Rail with stock bontys and had loads of really sketchy moments, after a particularly sketchy trail and there some discussion with Weeksy and some random others who all said it's your tyres. The cafe/bike shop in Park End had Contis in and Weeksy pointed out the variations and that James loves them, I bought a set. A wet, slippy day in the Peaks convinced me they are superb, unreal grip.

I have some new Contis hanging in the garage but once they're gone I'll probably try a radial front as I do like a bit of grip but that might be a while as tyres tend to last me a long time (lack of riding time).

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

If MTBs are like off road motorcycles, tyres make a massive difference, especially if you're not very good at riding.