Mountain Bike tyres, commuting tyres, road tyres, cyclocross tyres – they are all different beasts yet have many similarities. The key one is that everyone has an opinion on them, and a favourite. Favouritism can be born from exceptional wear life, or traction, price or marketing. But just as we may have favourite tyres, there are some we may scorn. Too many flats, difficulty fitting them – or a bad experience like a crash, can leave us wary of using certain brands.
I have had a few favourite treads, compounds and casings over the past few years. Advances in mountain bike tyres have been especially remarkable, and the amount of traction and strength available in a 2.2 or similar width tyre is incredible – even at a low weight. More recently I have settled on the Maxxis Ikon, in the 29 x 2.2″ variety. Especially the EXO reinforced version – that has kept me upright and rolling through a wide variety of terrain – and as such it’s the tyre of choice for the Subaru-MarathonMTB.com Team.
Michelin were a little bit quiet in the mountain bike tyre game until recently. With the prevalence of Maxxis, Schwalbe and Kenda (amongst may other) treads on the market, the long serving French brand seemed to be a bit quiet. However a lot of their tyres are receiving an overhaul. Michelin were there over a decade ago developing the UST system, and are perfecting their road tubeless tyres. Their new cross country based treads lack the green tread and skin walls from the late 90’s, but the Wild Race’R 29 x 2.1″ tyres that I have to test look like a good marathon and and endurance tyre choice. The bead is quite pronounced, and the casing is supple yet reassuringly thick. With diamond block tread at a forty five degree angle, there’s a lot of edge that can be in the dirt and gripping. The sidewall indicates a front and rear specific direction.
For me, part of the ease of use of a tyre is how easy it is to put a pair on. Admittedly, my timing wasn’t great. Fitting new tyres after work when your focus is on going home is not ideal. The Wild Race’R tyres are a very tight bead on the ZTR Crest rims that they were being fitted to. As in, I wish I had more hands to force it on. I have fitted many different tyres to many different rims, and this is up there with older generation Campagnolo rims and Continental tyres – or late 90’s Alex rims and… well, anything. After profuse sweating, flying tyre levers, and amazingly no wounds – the second bead of the tyre snapped into the rim. But I wasn’t home free yet. The two beads were so tight, they were pressed together over the valve, not allowing any air to come through to inflate the tyre. Utlising a tyre lever to prise the bead from the valve I was eventually able to get enough air flow through via a compressor to inflate the tyres. And they went up easily. No seeping, no re-inflation needed – even overnight. But boy I had to work for it. I used about 60mL of sealant in there – pretty light on.
Michelin Wild Race’R 29 x 2.1’s fitted. It wasn’t easy to get here though
Bear in mind that this model isn’t touted as tubeless specific or tubeless ready. That’s something I wanted to try. The Crest rim profile is adapted to making sure a non-tubeless tyre seals up well. And running a little tighter is part of that. And so that combination here is just that. Tight. But secure.
Next up is testing them on dirt, rock, and sand. I have them setup on my Bianchi hard tail with everything else set as standard. Looking at the tread pattern, I expect the open tread with diamond pattern to hook up quite well in regular loose dirt – but the tall edge knobs may squirm quite a lot on rock and drought baked hardpack. Time will tell, and I’ll get some of that on them and continue the review.