Hey everyone, end of the racing season up here in the white north
and with three racers in the house
it's time to take a look at the gear we used and give you
my two cents on what work for us.
Today I will concentrate on the tires
We used Schwalbe front and rear on all three bikes
and we put north of 700 kilometers on these bikes
between training for races and actual racing conditions.
Throughout the season I've used a couple of Pacestar compound tires that I had leftover
and all the other ones were ADDIX Speed, so one that's very similar to Pacestar
but the new compound from Schwalbe
so let me take them one by one and tell you what I think.
First, the Thunderbird, and you see here a tubeless ready
Pacestar compound, so Snakeskin
this has the sidewall, protected sidewalls
and this was used about half a season.
Thread pattern is identical with the new ADDIX compound tire,
you see the 29x2.25, the other one is 27.5x2.25
I run this one from spring until the end of the season.
No sealant seeping through the sidewalls
and right now, after a season of use,
they measure, this one measures about 2.2 inches being a 2.25.
Before I took this off I measured it and it was 2.15 on the slightly narrower rim.
The rim on the 29er is 24 mm.
This tire is almost bald, it is meant for speed
the rolling knobs here in the middle are tiny
but because of these cornering knobs that are sticking out quite a bit
as you can see here, it does provide a level of cornering that is very similar
to Racing Ralph.
What you give up is a bit of braking power.
This tire was used by a really light rider, about 60 pounds.
I am about 175 all dressed up and you can see here the cornering knobs
being pretty much done on mine, I mean I can
still ride the the tire but I would need to replace it for next year.
I didn't have any flats this season
given all the exposed casing that's quite something.
In all previous years I've had at least one flat throughout the season.
Next is the Race Ralph, and given my experience from last year
I decided to only use it in the rear.
I've used it front and rear last year and it was kind of sketchy up front.
This one is a Pacestar compound, Liteskin, back in the days when it was
still considered to be tubeless ready (TLR).
The other one is the ADDIX compound one
ADDIX Speed, and this one is the tubeless ready or Snakeskin
so reinforced casing here on sidewall.
Thread pattern, again, is the same.
Pretty good rolling resistance, however again, cornering is kind of sketchy if
you put this up front.
As a rear tire it's good, however the Thunderbird for me
works as well and it's a bit faster.
The one thing that I want to show you here is
this is Liteskin, it's not losing air yet, however you can see the sealant
sipping through the sidewall so after season of use
this tire is probably about done from that standpoint .
Wear and tear after a season of riding, you can see a
bit of wear here on the side knobs, you can see these rolling knobs being a bit
more rounded up, they don't have the sharp edges anymore
and on this one you can see
a more pronounced wear here on the rolling knobs, and also you see
small tears over there on the cornering knobs.
By the way, that's a good way of checking on
whether you're leaning your bike in the corners, if you see these kind of cuts on
your cornering knobs, you know you're doing a great job if you don't see any
of that you might want to recheck your technique!
They've lasted a full season for me
with no flats and that's the most important thing.
By the way, on these 23 mm ID rims
and that one is at 20, almost 21, they measure 2.15 inches
after stretching out the whole season.
And that takes me to the Rocket Ron
which was the tire of choice for us up front.
I've used the Snakeskin sidewall on the 29er,
this is Liteskin, ADDIX compound,
ADDIX as well and Liteskin
and finally we've used this one for a little bit.
This one is tubeless ready TLR, Snakeskin 27.5, this is the one with the big wobble
so we took it off because it was defective.
But all the other ones worked perfectly fine,
you can see on the Liteskin here, on the sidewall
you can see tiny bits of Stan's sealant seeping through.
Now as you use this more and more, you're gonna see more sealants seeping through
so that's when you probably replace it.
But the Snakeskin one that is supposed to be tubeless
worked out perfectly from the get-go, no issues whatsoever.
This fourth one, this was a bit of a nightmare to seal,
I ended up putting the Race Stan's sealant in it
which is a bit thicker and has bigger particles in it
so thisADDIX Speed, Liteskin, it just took forever and even now
even though you don't see sealant seeping through here,
there's a couple of spots where
tiny bits of air escape still so it will lose a little bit of air in time.
But overall it was usable tubeless even though it was not meant to be.
Wear on these tires can be seen as the rounded edges here on the knobs.
And it's more pronounced on these two tires
because my kids use their dirt bikes on the street
so on asphalt tarmac as well.
On mine, it looks almost new, I didn't put that many kilometres on it
compared to my kids, and I didn't ride this much on asphalt at all.
So this looks very good at the end of the season, I would definitely either
use it in the rear, or continue to use it up front for a little while.
29er 2.25 measures 2.2, the other ones on narrower rims, they measure 2.15 up front
and in my opinion they are a much better front tire than Racing Ralph.
ADDIX compound tires seem to be an incremental improvement
on the previous Pacestar, but I didn't feel like they provided a lot more of anything.
They were good tires, that probably lasted longer
than the Pacestar we've used before.
One thing to notice is that I received a defective tire,
I have a couple more that have imperfect casing
and almost all the tires were overweight by about 10%.
That can be an important consideration especially for XC tires.
What about you guys?
Have you used any of the new ADDIX tires this year?
Do you plan to use the new Racing Ralph or Racing Ray
that they just released?
Let me know what you think in the comments below,
if you found this useful don't forget to like the video,
keep an eye on my channel and social media.
I'm gonna include more links in the description below,
and until next time, hope to see you guys on the trails
If nothing else for some night riding.
Cheers guys, cheers!