When millimeters and milliseconds mean more than aesthetics.
High in the hills above Laguna, California, Aaron Gwin shows me a downhill tire he's been developing for over a year. He's holding a production sample of his signature Onza Aquila. Running 27.5 x 2.4-inches, Aaron set out to create a high-performance, intermediate-condition downhill tire from scratch. Having ridden the "best of the best" throughout his career, Gwin understood that existing tires and tread patterns had their advantages and disadvantages, with no tire, in his opinion, culminating into the perfect package for course conditions he experiences most often on the World Cup.
I've kind of run the best of the best of what's out there throughout my career, but each tire has one thing that I wish it did better. -Aaron Gwin
The Aquila was born on a plane flight home from Germany in early 2016. Aaron studied existing tires he had competed on in the past and came up with a hand-drawn design that he presented to Onza, resulting in his signature tread. The prototype was debuted at Eurobike in 2016 and the comments referred to its aesthetic as a hybrid of existing tires with nicknames like "Gwutcher" or "Gwinion DHR".
Gwin responds, "It's a tire. What are you going to do to make it look drastically different?"
As I spoke with Gwin about the details of his design, it was apparent that he was extremely methodical in thinking through every detail of knob spacing, angle, shape of the blocks and even sipe depth in the blocks. Historically, he liked how the Specialized Butcher cornered but not how it performed under braking. The perpendicular channels in the knobs were a positive of the Butcher, but the block shape and sipe depth of the center knobs hindered braking performance. He liked how the Minion DHR II handled braking, but felt the staggered block pattern between the side and center knobs compromised predictability in the corners. The side knobs were also too bulky for his liking, resulting in decreased bite. He was pointing out sipe depth differences of about a millimeter on the braking blocks between his Aquila and a Butcher, explaining that the minuscule amount of remaining rubber in the knob of the Aquila made the difference when braking.
When you consider Aaron has been able to tell his mechanic, John Hall, that his tire felt about .5 PSI too low after a practice run, only to have that hunch confirmed by a digital tire gauge, Gwin is clearly in a position to understand such incremental performance gains.
Taking his racing experience aboard Maxxis, Specialized and Bontrager tires, he's borrowed from existing elements and refined the total package into what he believes is the perfect intermediate DH tire.
Aaron plans on racing these tires in the 2017 UCI World Cup downhill events provided conditions allow (i.e. it's not muddy). The tires will be available in a wire bead version around Sea Otter 2017 with a foldable version launching later in 2017. Production weight for the 2.4-inch tire hovers around 1285g with two compound options, the RC2 45a (dual-compound 55a/45a knobs) and the VISCO GRP40. Gwin hints at plans for more tires to come, but getting the 2.4-inch version was his biggest priority for the upcoming 2017 downhill race season.
zirk
2/15/2017 5:49 PM
These multi-media articles are awesome! Please don't mimic the news outlets that post articles with both a video and written story but the copy in the written story is nearly a word-for-word transcript of the video dialogue.
In the eyes of a former journalist, this article was a good mix of both, so hats off to you Spomer. Please keep on bringin' the heat.
zirk
2/15/2017 6:00 PM
NorCalNomad
2/20/2017 9:51 AM
+1 The mixture of photos and raw audio that helps tell a story has imo kept VitalMTB the best place for race and news coverage.
Way better than a edited video 99/100 times
Wagon650B
8/17/2017 3:01 PM
phillemaistre
2/15/2017 12:32 PM
TRex
2/15/2017 9:32 AM
Shawn_Trudell
2/15/2017 1:09 AM
Scrub
2/15/2017 5:06 PM
CurtisO
2/14/2017 8:20 PM
Maxipedia
2/15/2017 4:31 AM
You mean those tires that were, uhm, ”inspired” by the Michelin C16, C24, C32 and, ultimately, the Transalp from the early 90's? Or what are those ”contributions”, actually?
Tehllama
2/15/2017 6:05 PM
Maxipedia
2/16/2017 7:35 AM
@Tehllama I feel you, but the time distance between the launch of said Michelins and the copycat versions is very short. They were available at the same time on the market, but Michelins were more expensive, because they were made in Europe, as they had no Asian factory back then. I love Maxxis and the fact that they made quality rubber more affordable, but let's not overestimate certain people's ”creative” input. Both Minions and the High Roller are Michelin rip-offs and the Transalp was an awesome tire as early as in 1994. The only innovation/refinement here is marketing and hitting certain price points. A smart feat, but not much actual tread design in there.
I salute you, buddy!
spech
2/14/2017 4:56 PM
sspomer
2/14/2017 6:59 PM
sideshow
2/14/2017 8:01 PM
It's like in Alpine ski racing when a skier can feel the difference in 1 or .5 degree change in their edge camber.
Minnaar is legendarily fastidious with his setups, from tire psi to suspension, just ask Jordi Cortez. Brandon Semenuk too, with bike geo - there's a story about how he said something was 'off' with a brand new build, SRAM tech measured it, and the fork was 5mm too low.
Tire pressure is no different as Spomer points out, as it will be the same on a relative scale when testing under consistent conditions. Niki Lauda, the great F1 driver was just as meticulous with his cars. When people are the top competitors in their sport, it's because they can not only perform better, but also because they are in tune with themselves and their equipment in ways a lot of us can't/won't understand.
Tehllama
2/15/2017 6:10 PM
Salespunk
2/15/2017 8:57 AM
sideshow
2/14/2017 3:02 PM
Maxipedia
2/15/2017 4:32 AM
That's also a pretty neat PR story, don't you think?
Allen_Gleckner
2/14/2017 2:36 PM
sspomer
2/14/2017 2:56 PM
Allen_Gleckner
2/14/2017 3:25 PM
Tehllama
2/15/2017 6:15 PM
MacRamsay
2/14/2017 2:35 PM
'size
2/14/2017 1:12 PM
when is the 26" trail weight version coming out?
Tehllama
2/15/2017 6:17 PM
Scrub
2/14/2017 12:33 PM
mp
2/14/2017 7:20 PM
I would guess that Onza tire popularity peaked in the Porcupine days: http://wundel.com/pic/jpg_2/kult_onza_1.jpg I don't see it getting bigger than that! Had some decent versions following that as well in the mid 90s.
These will definitely sell though, and the big numbers are in the trail department.
sideshow
2/14/2017 8:01 PM
dustboy
2/20/2017 7:56 PM