I got my hands on a DHX and DHR2, both in the New DH casing, and have some first ride thoughts. Two words: holy shit! The...
I got my hands on a DHX and DHR2, both in the New DH casing, and have some first ride thoughts. Two words: holy shit! The gist of it is, the feel of this casing is what I wanted from radial but couldn't get. I weigh ~150 lbs, and am on a ~49 lb ebike, riding totally dry and blown out trails about an hour north of Santa Cruz. I started with lower pressure than what I run with DH, but kind of hedging a bit - 18 front, 20 rear. With old Maxxis DH or Conti, I usually run about 19/22 locally, and add 1-2 psi if I'm riding somewhere really rocky. Things felt decent but a bit pingy after first lap so I checked pressures, and they'd gone up 2 psi since I left my house due to it being 94* out. Dropped back down to 18/20 - better, more compliance & grip but no squirm. Dropped 0.5 psi next lap to 17.5/19.5 - still improving with no downside. After that dropped to 17/19 (!!!) and had crazy good grip, nice damp feeling. By the end of the ride at that pressure, I still wasn't getting the X marks on sidewalls, even after hitting some high speed, steep berms and big compressions. Compliance over roots and rocks was excellent. Traction on flat corners was on par with Gravity Radials, without any squirm. There's one flat corner at the top of our hill that I can hit without braking when I trust grip - I get it about 20% of the time on regular tires, 80% of the time on radials, and was 4/4 yesterday on NDH. And that's with conditions about as bad as they possibly can get. The DHX up front rolls noticeably faster than the HR3 that it replaced, and still hooks up in steep loose chutes where an Assegai/Kryptotal Front tend to float. Even at those silly low pressures, I was overshooting landings because I was carrying so much more speed into them. As someone who never really gelled with the radials, this is the feel I was looking for. Part of it is the incredible sidewall stability, but part of it is really good tread patterns and knobs.
Now, the downside is these are freaking heavy. My 29x2.5 DHX clocked in at 1,534g. My 27.5x2.5 DHR II (NDH) is 1,340g. In the future when new casings become available, I'll consider dropping the DHX down to DD casing (depending on what the actual weight savings is) but keep the NDH in the rear (just with MaxxTerra v2 once that's available). On my enduro bike, I definitely can't stomach pedaling a 1500g tire, so will probably stick with DD/DD or EXO+/DD. I'll probably switch back to my stash of HR3s for the front once the rain starts in a month or two, but I plan on running DHX front for the majority of the year here. Even if the DHX runs heavy in DD / EXO+, it's damn good and worth the penalty.
It'll be interesting to see if the dhx translates well to a dd or exo+.I suspect the magic there is 95% new dh casing. I've been...
It'll be interesting to see if the dhx translates well to a dd or exo+.
I suspect the magic there is 95% new dh casing. I've been running them on my dh bike and my e-dreadnought for half the summer, and agree that they are better than the other brand's radials. Feels like you have the sidewall support in corners of a cushcore insert, but with the traction of a radial.
They were great in western canada's dry conditions this year. Kind of unique conditions in that there's the usual loose over hardpack, but certain corners were full on deep moon dust. So you wanted to run something like a magic mary or hr3, but it would get squirmy in high load corners on hardpack. The dhx's bridged those conditions nicely, and roll relatively quickly for what they are.
Yeah, seems like the casing is the secret sauce. My issue with the schwalbe radial trail casing is the lack of sidewall support and I don't want to switch to a gravity casing on my trail bike.
I picked up continental Kryptotals in Enduro casing and have been pleasantly surprised. Better sidewall support and the grip is excellent and predictable. I think I'll stick with these until the depths of PNW winter arrive.
Currently running through a tire a week so have a pretty good feel of Maxxis tires from new through clapped out. Finally got a batch of...
Currently running through a tire a week so have a pretty good feel of Maxxis tires from new through clapped out. Finally got a batch of 'New DH' casing tires in. Wowza. Alright, that was more noticeable of a change than I was expecting! BIG FAN
Just out of curiosity, what did you like about the new casing?
The sidewall support is very apparent. The "new DH" casing is like a casing beyond the old DH.
Think of the difference going from double down to DH, and then apply that to old DH and new DH.
I like it a lot for bike park, but it is very heavy. I probably won't be putting maxxis new dh on my pedal bike, like I would with schwalbe or conti DH.
I got my hands on a DHX and DHR2, both in the New DH casing, and have some first ride thoughts. Two words: holy shit! The...
I got my hands on a DHX and DHR2, both in the New DH casing, and have some first ride thoughts. Two words: holy shit! The gist of it is, the feel of this casing is what I wanted from radial but couldn't get. I weigh ~150 lbs, and am on a ~49 lb ebike, riding totally dry and blown out trails about an hour north of Santa Cruz. I started with lower pressure than what I run with DH, but kind of hedging a bit - 18 front, 20 rear. With old Maxxis DH or Conti, I usually run about 19/22 locally, and add 1-2 psi if I'm riding somewhere really rocky. Things felt decent but a bit pingy after first lap so I checked pressures, and they'd gone up 2 psi since I left my house due to it being 94* out. Dropped back down to 18/20 - better, more compliance & grip but no squirm. Dropped 0.5 psi next lap to 17.5/19.5 - still improving with no downside. After that dropped to 17/19 (!!!) and had crazy good grip, nice damp feeling. By the end of the ride at that pressure, I still wasn't getting the X marks on sidewalls, even after hitting some high speed, steep berms and big compressions. Compliance over roots and rocks was excellent. Traction on flat corners was on par with Gravity Radials, without any squirm. There's one flat corner at the top of our hill that I can hit without braking when I trust grip - I get it about 20% of the time on regular tires, 80% of the time on radials, and was 4/4 yesterday on NDH. And that's with conditions about as bad as they possibly can get. The DHX up front rolls noticeably faster than the HR3 that it replaced, and still hooks up in steep loose chutes where an Assegai/Kryptotal Front tend to float. Even at those silly low pressures, I was overshooting landings because I was carrying so much more speed into them. As someone who never really gelled with the radials, this is the feel I was looking for. Part of it is the incredible sidewall stability, but part of it is really good tread patterns and knobs.
Now, the downside is these are freaking heavy. My 29x2.5 DHX clocked in at 1,534g. My 27.5x2.5 DHR II (NDH) is 1,340g. In the future when new casings become available, I'll consider dropping the DHX down to DD casing (depending on what the actual weight savings is) but keep the NDH in the rear (just with MaxxTerra v2 once that's available). On my enduro bike, I definitely can't stomach pedaling a 1500g tire, so will probably stick with DD/DD or EXO+/DD. I'll probably switch back to my stash of HR3s for the front once the rain starts in a month or two, but I plan on running DHX front for the majority of the year here. Even if the DHX runs heavy in DD / EXO+, it's damn good and worth the penalty.
It'll be interesting to see if the dhx translates well to a dd or exo+.I suspect the magic there is 95% new dh casing. I've been...
It'll be interesting to see if the dhx translates well to a dd or exo+.
I suspect the magic there is 95% new dh casing. I've been running them on my dh bike and my e-dreadnought for half the summer, and agree that they are better than the other brand's radials. Feels like you have the sidewall support in corners of a cushcore insert, but with the traction of a radial.
They were great in western canada's dry conditions this year. Kind of unique conditions in that there's the usual loose over hardpack, but certain corners were full on deep moon dust. So you wanted to run something like a magic mary or hr3, but it would get squirmy in high load corners on hardpack. The dhx's bridged those conditions nicely, and roll relatively quickly for what they are.
Yeah, seems like the casing is the secret sauce. My issue with the schwalbe radial trail casing is the lack of sidewall support and I don't...
Yeah, seems like the casing is the secret sauce. My issue with the schwalbe radial trail casing is the lack of sidewall support and I don't want to switch to a gravity casing on my trail bike.
I picked up continental Kryptotals in Enduro casing and have been pleasantly surprised. Better sidewall support and the grip is excellent and predictable. I think I'll stick with these until the depths of PNW winter arrive.
If you like the schwalbe tires, but find they lack sidewall support, I have found that a tannus pro insert can add a substantial amount of sidewall support for not very much weight penalty.
Yeah, seems like the casing is the secret sauce. My issue with the schwalbe radial trail casing is the lack of sidewall support and I don't want to switch to a gravity casing on my trail bike.
I picked up continental Kryptotals in Enduro casing and have been pleasantly surprised. Better sidewall support and the grip is excellent and predictable. I think I'll stick with these until the depths of PNW winter arrive.
The sidewall support is very apparent. The "new DH" casing is like a casing beyond the old DH.
Think of the difference going from double down to DH, and then apply that to old DH and new DH.
I like it a lot for bike park, but it is very heavy. I probably won't be putting maxxis new dh on my pedal bike, like I would with schwalbe or conti DH.
If you like the schwalbe tires, but find they lack sidewall support, I have found that a tannus pro insert can add a substantial amount of sidewall support for not very much weight penalty.
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