Front DH Tyres Accurately Timed: Albert Radial vs Assegai

i rather just read the result

Interesting finding that the radial casing has a better 'feel' in the car park but is then bouncier/less damped in rough stuff. Do you think that could be sorted out by more experimentation with the pressures you run? Or is it more sensitive to pressure overall? The best pressure for flow trails would not be the same as tech trails but perhaps they are much further apart on a radial tire?

I think it's really hard to do this objectively. For once the testers need to get really familiar with the tires and find the right air pressure for all conditions. Especially with the radial casings. Then it needs to be made sure that the rubber compound of the tires is new and has been stored properly (cold and dark). I once bought a cheap magic mary without packaging from a shop (probably covid stock not used for building complete bikes) and it had that grey shine to it and had less grip than the magic mary it replaced because the rubber was noticeably less sticky. 

And last but not least if you have an assistant you could get the bike get prepared with a random tire out of your sample with blacked logos and handed to you with fenders, so that you don't see which tire is on before you drop in. 

Its also very important how many time the tester spent on which tire before the test. Because if you are very familiar with one tire it might skew the results if it is not a blind test. 

I didn't watch the whole videos yet. Did you ride the magic mary radial trail and gravity casings yet? I think you need to experiment with the air pressure a bit more. I'm a bit dumbfounded that you say the ride quality is better but they are bouncier. For me the better ride quality comes from them feeling more planted than non-radial casings which in turn gives me more grip and confidence. It feels like the bike has 10mm more travel...

https://www.schwalbe.com/en/radialtires-mtb

"We recommend initially using the same air pressure as a cross-ply tire with a comparable carcass construction (e.g. Gravity or Super Gravity). However, since Schwalbe radial tires are more flexible than conventional cross-ply tires even at higher pressures and retain their positive characteristics, the air pressure can be adapted much better to the riding conditions. For example, if the track conditions require a higher pressure to prevent punctures, this is easily possible with Schwalbe radial tires without having to accept disproportionately large compromises in grip." 

Yeah, I forgot about suspension setup in relation to the tires. Fuck, this is so tricky! I actually like a slower rebound I think. At least I'm most often close to the fox recommendation and don't open up rebound all the way as some people seem to prefer. 

Very interesting.  I personally find the DD casing to be the best feel for me for a front tire, so feel somewhat vindicated by this.

I am curious to hear what your findings on the HR3 end up being, for a couple reasons.  First, it rolls noticeably faster than the Assegai, while retaining very sturdy and supportive side knobs.  So it should fare better from that alone.  But here on Vital forums there has also been a bunch of speculation that the DH casing version of the HR3 features a stealth revision to the layup, making it more compliant.  So if the DD Assegai ended up faster than the DH version, it would be interesting to see how a DD vs. DH HR3 compares, to try and determine whether they really did change the DH casing (does the gap decrease or reverse?).

You need to test the Magic Mary radial. Its a much better/versatile/aggressive tire than the Albert. But I'm not sure if testing tires objectively will work as there are so many variables.