Hi everyone!
Winter is the time to play with new things and in my case
I have a few new tires.
But first of all, I am going to take a look at the Vittoria tires,
and what you see here is the Barzo and the Mezcal.
They are both cross country tires that I am planning to use in 2019.
The compound they use in their tires uses Graphene,
which is supposed to give you a whole bunch of good stuff
And you see here for the Barzo, this is for loose,
and mixed type of conditions.
Actually if you look here on the back
they give you a tiny bit more about that.
They call it hard pack, mix terrain, and maybe a little bit of wet.
The only other thing here on the label is the ETRTO.
So, 57 mm expected width of this tire,
and that's the inner dimension, 622 mm.
Supposed to be 730 grams.
And by the way, that's the product code for them.
On the Mezcal, I have the Graphene blah blah,
but I don't have the info about the application.
This is more of a dry, hard pack, and mixed condition tire.
On the back here, kind of the same information is listed.
But you have the ETRTO which is by the way the same, 57 mm
and the weight, which is supposed to be 710 grams.
Once you remove that strap and the packaging, you're gonna find this inside,
which is not a warranty paper.
This is actually how to install a tire on a rim.
And here on the sidewall, you can see the information about the tire, 29 x 2.35,
both tires are that.
That's the ETRTO,
these use the Graphene, they are 4c - four compound tires,
tubeless ready, or TNT, and they do provide the sidewall protection.
Sidewall feels pretty rubbery and actually this is a two-tone tire.
You can see the black of the thread,
and the sidewall it's a lighter grey.
Barzo on the scale is 759 grams.
This is over the 730g mention here or the 745g mentioned on their website.
As opposed to that, Mezcal comes up to 705 grams.
We have 710g mentioned here on the box, and on the website they mentioned 725g.
I'm installing the tires on a set of Stan's Arch MK3 rims,
that I have reviewed not too long ago.
They provide a 26 mm ID or internal dimension
and this redesigned profile has 16 mm height.
Tires have a pretty tight bead
but I was able to install them without tire levers.
You can see here, made in Thailand, and the rotation specified on each.
I have them at 40 psi right now
and I will leave them overnight to stretch a little bit.
I'll be back tomorrow to take some measurements.
Here you can see the round profile of both tires
but you can see on the Barzo, those channels that would provide
a bit more cornering, or a bit more aggressive cornering.
Also, this continuous ridge of knobs in the center of the Mezcal
that would give you great rolling resistance.
One day later, 25 psi in the tires
and you can see how the cornering knobs
and the casing are pretty much at the same level on the Barzo.
That means that the thread width,
and the casing width, will pretty much be the same.
Looking at the Mezcal, it's not much different.
The cornering knobs and the casing are the same level.
It was very easy to set up tubeless and if you look,
the casing is nice and round, no site-to-site wobble, almost perfect.
Something that I can't say about the tires that I've seen as of late.
Measured width is at 2.24, as we see it there.
Switch it to millimeters, that's almost 57mm, but guess what?
You have 57mm here, ETRTO.
So 57 millimeters width, that's what they say on the specs,
even though this is a 2.35 tire that measures 2.25.
Mezcal, pretty much the same,
57 millimeters, and you can see the caliper here,
pretty much touching on the casing,
the side knobs here do not protrude out much, if at all.
As for the height of these tires,
the Mezcal is about 72 millimeters.
Remember, my rim is 16mm tall,
and Bazo is maybe a millimeter taller than that,
so about 73mm tall, with the 16mm rim height.
The difference is coming from the height of the knobs.
Mezcal center is 2.5-2.6 mm.
Cornering knobs about 3.8mm tall.
Barzo, you add about half a millimeter,
so these would be more like 3 millimeter tall,
and the cornering knobs here will be 4.2-4.3mm tall.
So overall nice volume tires,
that I'm looking to use
not necessarily for racing given their weight,
but maybe just perfect trail tire combination.
I don't know, they look pretty with that the gray sidewall.
The volume is not as big as a Maxxis IKon 2.35,
but the Barzo seems to be more aggressive for a front, for sure.
What about you guys?
Have you had any experience with Vittoria tires?
Or Geax brand before that?
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
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don't forget to Like and Subscribe,
and until next time,
I will see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys,
Cheers!