Trials Tires Instead of Knobbies?

[mikem]

Is the Thumpertalk article for real regarding the X-11 Trails tire? It almost sounds like a joke. Does anybody else have experience with doing this?

MikeM

[Terrain Rider 4z]

Mike,

Last October I was up at Jones Creek (local riding area near Vancouver) looking for someone to ride with. Along come these two yahoos pulling a couple of blue bikes, one with a really gay looking trials tire. I took one look at that and laughed. I got to talking to these guys and they invited me to tag along. It was the first time they were trying out the X-11 on the WR and I couldn't believe how it hooked up. Ends up the guy with the trials tire had the same name as the guy that wrote that article. His buddy was this Bryan guy, he was alright I guess ?. Well they took me for a great ride as I was new to the area. Later they explained to me that they were taking over this website called Thumpertalk.com, so I checked it out. Great website, great guys, great tire

I rode with another guy that runs the X-11 on his Gas Gas and it did not do well in snow, but for rocks and roots it was awesome.

Ryan Forsberg

XR Moderator

[Rich_in_Orlando]

A friend of mine put a pair of IRC trials tires (less than half the cost of Michelins) on his WR426 after reading the Thumpertalk article. You're right, they look ridiculous, but they really performed well for him in many different types of terrain. I followed suit and had them on my bike for many months. They do really well on hard pack, rocks, dry clay, sand with a hard base and on pavement. Powersliding on two-track trails is a blast on them-very predictable. They hook up well in the conditions I described and acceleration is noticable better than on knobbies. I put them on for the first time for a planned dual-sport ride in the mountains of north GA and they were perfect. I liked them so much I referred to them as "my secret weapon".

They don't do well in soft, tight terrain when you are trying to go fast. I found myself sliding around way too much. That's OK on two-track, but in tight stuff the trees are way too close where precision is important. I went back to knobbies this week because there's so much sugar sand where we ride and I was getting frustrated. But the next time we ride in harder terrain I'll be putting my secret weapons back on.