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thanks for posting this. I always thought Bontrager tires were underrated. Been a fan of the SE4 for years. Even ran the SE5 and SE6 on my park bike last season with a decent level of success. I think Trek/Bontrager and Specialized both miss out of a lot of tire sales by not advertising and/or explaining changes to their lineup. Hell, even just providing content publishers like Vital and Pink with those kind of updates, explanations of casings/compounds, and test units would go a long way. As much info as this photo provides, it leaves an equal number of questions.
https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/equipment/cycling-components/bike-tires/tubeless-ready-bike-tires/tubeless-ready-mountain-bike-tires/bontrager-brevard-rsl-se-tlr-mtb-tire/p/44588/?colorCode=black_tan
this is a perfect example. What the hell do all these new acronyms mean? How do they compare to the known quantities on the market?
I have a new favorite for my front tire on my Smuggler.
It's a 2.5 Albert Ultrasoft trail tire. I had initially bought it for my Relay front and found that with the speeds and terrain I encountered on the e-bike, the Albert was just inadequate and it has since been replaced by a very good Magic Mary Radial.
I then tested the Albert 2.5 US up front on my Smuggler. LOVE IT! It's very fast and has enough traction for that application.
What changes if any did you make on pressures with the radial?
I get away with fairly low pressures, particularly on my trail bike that sort of maxes out at about a 3' drop but still sees plenty of chunk. (I'm 182#s)
My old AND current set up was a Cross King in the rear with a lightweight insert (broke a rim last year, even with the insert, but at 21 psi) is 23 psi.
For the front tire I was mostly running 19 psi with the other tires I was testing, like the Purgatory T9 but when I tried that with the Albert it felt funny right away. A bit of testing and I ended up at 23 psi.
So now I run 23 R (Cross King with insert) & 23 F (2.5 Albert US trail).
The Relay has seen a similar bump in pressures, and I ended up at 23 & 27 (no inserts for the first time in years) with the MM trail & Albert gravity Radials.
It's worth noting that our terrain is darn loose, especially where I take the Relay. We don't have much to push against to load up the tires and traction is at an absolute premium and hard to find. When I increase air pressure my bikes end up skating on top of the rocks and/ or pinging everywhere.
Hope that helps.
new high roller in DD and EXO+ now available (just got the email about it) - https://shop.maxxis.com/products/high-roller
They’ve had EXO and EXO+ SKUs loaded up on the Maxxis website for a minute. Didn’t think they’d have them this soon. Thought they were keeping it to the DD and DH casing that was released in July. But more casings are always good!
My DD highroller just got dropped off at my door😁. Won't be mounting it for a week or two though.
I’ve been running nothing but DH super soft Kryptotal FR / Xynotal and have started to question if the casing is too stiff for me during harder riding. Over 16psi and the ride quality noticeably diminishes. I’m thinking of trying out these new Schwalbe radials. Magic Mary gravity super soft / Albert gravity soft front and rear respectively. Hoping it would let me run at least 20psi with similar performance?
interesting.. to me Kryptotals are stiffer than maxxis, comparable to Schwalbe and less stiff than any michelin (DH or wild enduro raceline).. never felt these were on the stiff side..
That new high roller is so tempting! I absolutely loved the Continental Argotal this year for my riding terrain but I am stuck with using a DH casing 1300g tire just to get the super soft compound. As a 160lb rider it is overkill for me. I know Kryptotal SS Enduro is on the way but does anyone know if Argotal SS Enduro is also in the works? If not then this Exo+ High Roller might be the ticket.
Anyone still drunk off the Schwalbe "Radial Revolution" kool-aid? They seem to be more available now.
What pressures differences are you running compared to previous tires? I have heard of people going up as much as 10 psi with the same traction/feel as before. Is that legit?
I have had the high roller 3 in DD on the front of my nomad for about 3 months, it’s been great as we had a pretty damp summer here in Northern Ireland and as me and my brother had just built two new loamers it was the perfect tyre, we have some old trails that are down to bedrock which the assegai is slightly better on but the high roller hasn’t held me back at all on these. Keen to get my hands on the exo+ version as my DD is looking very tired (max grip definatley don’t wear well but the grip can’t be questioned)
high roller 3 seems like a Maxxis Magic Mary.
New Schwalbe Magic Mary Gravity Pro Radial feels a lot better than Maxxis Assegai DH Maxxgrip in similar pressures. Upped the pressures after breaking a rim and found the rear very harsh, 24psi front and 27.5-28 rear Maxxis Assegai DH Maxxgrip. The same pressures a Schwalbe Magic Mary Gravity Pro Radial felt normal, more like if you took 3-4psi out of the tires and got compliance even with pressures so high I hardly hear any rim impacts, FYI I got Rimpact Pro and Rimpact Pro Race inserts both front and back.
I just got a set to see whether the hype is real, but first ride went down and messed up my shoulder. I added 4 PSI more to Trail/Gravity from what I was running with Conti DH to get it to deform similarly in the garage. I'll give them another try once I heal up but I'm honestly kind of skeptical - I feel like the higher pressure and more rounded profile contributed to me losing grip on the front end.
So comparing Maxxis shorty 2’s and highroller 3’s side by side in my local bike shop yesterday there is hardly any difference (you’d need a set of verniers to tell basically). Really liked the old shorty, but moved to the assegai as I find it better all round. Kind of a weird play on Maxxis’ part that no-one seems to have made much of.
The knobs are different shaped and shorty has bigger spacing between them.
You get a tube with a longer valve, 44mm might be the shortest you can go. You can just poke it through the cushcore and you're good to go. I've done this a few times for trailside repairs when I can't plug a slashed casing and don't want to wear a slimey insert around my shoulders.
I kind of want to try them simply to have better traction while getting to run higher pressure. Rocks strikes suck.
Probably too stiff, Im running the Argotal SS front and rear right now as conditions are turning slick and wet, and I am running 29psi rear and 23psi front. I couldn't imagine using 16 psi, I would be cracking rims left and right. I do weight 210-215. Dropping to a softer casing might help make the tire come alive a bit more.
From my personal experience, I have had all of these sitting in my garage at various points this year and have run them at various points this summer, I would rate the following casings stiffness in descending (stiffest to softest) order:
Michelin DH, Conti DH, Maxxis DH - Specialized DH (tie), E13 Enduro, Schwalbe SDH, Maxxis DD. Schwalbe SG
Running Schwalbe Alberts, Trail casing super soft on 160/140 travel trail bike. They are crazy good, they just erase small trail chatter. Running 3-4psi more than previous tires, at 27F/30R and still feel like I could go up without any issues with traction. When climbing tech they deform and grip amazingly well and with the pressure I'm running no issues rimming-out on chunky rock or rolling when loaded into corners. Have multiple trail rides and two park days on them so far.
Have been using Maxxis Assegai/DHRII in Exo+/Maxxterra combo and Vittoria Mazza in Trail/4C casing/compound on this bike this past year, multiple sets of each due to high-wear seen in Front Range decomposed granite soil. So far wear seems on par with those with the SS Schwalbe compound. Had one day in rainy park conditions while traveling and the grip was shockingly good. Other people in our group with MaxxGrip Maxxis tires were commenting they were sliding on wet rocks/roots and slowing down, two of us riding the SS compound radial Alberts were still feeling no need to back off.
Undersized for a 2.5", look like a 2.4. Clear decent until real mud then clog up. Roll about the same as the soft compound competitors, not great but not bad. They do have this soft feel though, no pinging of trail chatter.
TLDR - best tires I've used in a while. Can't wait to see more tread patterns become available.
RE: The Radial kool-aid, a longtime Schwalbe athlete put out a concise breakdown of his first impressions on the Alberts.
It seems to answer a lot of the questions that have been circulating around here.
Can you compare the Alber to the Mary? What didn't you like about it vs the Mary? Most people seem to be preferring the Albert but the WC guys like Amaury seem to be riding mostly Magic Marys for front tires.
I have tried only the magic mary trail radial ultra soft so far and Its very good.
My big bike spends more time in loose rocks, rather than the hard pack where I ride the trail bike.
The Albert just didn't have the edge knobs, the spacing, nor the overall width to 'bite' into the really loose stuff. The MM Radial works notably better on this stuff. As did the Assagai, the E22 Soft, the Mazza 2.6, etc.
But I LOVE the Albert up front on my trail bike. It's really fast for the traction offered. Warning, these Alberts (not the MM nor the Shredda) run absurdly small. I have a 27.5 x 2.6 Albert Gravity soft on the back of my MX Relay and after 2 days of stretching it's literally 2.42" wide at most.
Alright, here is my two cents on Schwalbe's radial casing and the Albert. Sorry for word-barfing so hard in a forum.
So we tested the Albert at the end of summer before it launched as part of a gravity tire shootout that's dropping next week. I know, a bit of a delay. But we didn't have any information about the tire during the test, and **spoiler** it ended up being our least favorite. Part of this was due to the lack of support and damping from the casing. Part of it was due to the tread design struggling to bite into loose soil, or loose over hardpack. When the tire and casing launched, I was a bit confused to hear so much of the hype around increasing the contact patch/ground feel and traction since that was not what we felt during the shootout. I decided to spend more time on them once I got home, and rode them for a few weeks around SoCal in dry, slippery, and rocky conditions.
The Pro Gravity casing is super malleable, especially across the tread. It's shocking how flexible the tires are when just poking your thumb into them compared to any other trail-gravity tire. My first thought (like others have mentioned) was that more pressure was probably needed to make the tires firmer/supportive and counter their extra compliance. I always start at 25psi front/27psi rear. It's generally my sweet spot for grip, rim protection, and minimizing tire roll. My go-to pressures caused the Albert to flex-out and squirm anytime I drove energy through them. A similar thing happened when hitting rocks or HSC, as the tires didn't feel very planted and tended to bounce around more than expected. This feeling was more noticeable up front.
I went as high as 33psi front/38psi rear, along with a few pressures in between. Higher pressure did give the tire more sidewall support and stability. I noticed this most through big compressions and turns; the tires squirmed less. The issue was anything over 30psi front/32psi rear and the tires became extra responsive—in a bad way. Increasing pressure didn't seem to make the casing much firmer under the tread, so when hitting rocks and bumps, the tire still deformed, but the extra pressure seemed to increase the tire's rebound.
If you are purely seeking rim protection and feel that extra air is the best way to achieve that, I will say the radial casing allows you to run higher pressures than you normally would and still receive okay traction (Compared to riding other tires at similarly high pressures). Inversely, you could run a radial tire at normal pressures and end up with a tire that feels like it has less pressure, which could be nice for wet, rooty trails, where you want extra casing compliance and the ground is likely softer so you aren't as worried about sidewall support. I also never had any rim impacts at my normal 25/27 psi, so despite lacking support, they still offered protection.
For me, the lack of damping and how bouncy the tires feel at a pressure high enough to make them supportive in firmer, rocky/rooty trails is not my ideal ride quality. I like tires that ride calm, damp, and settled, especially the harder I ride. I want to feel the ground all the time, and usually, I can get that feeling with a burly, supportive casing that also provides rim protection.
The Albert tread design has a very round profile with not very pronounced side lugs. There is consistent traction as you lean over, similar to an Assegai, but the point at which traction fades is super vague. There are also so many knobs that they struggle to cut through loose topsoil. The tire does roll really fast, and as a rear tire, it has decent braking traction. It reminded me of a more refined version of Schwalbe's Hans Dampf, which is another tire I'd describe as vague. It also definitely runs narrow like others have pointed out. The only times I've liked the Albert is when conditions are really predictable. Anytime conditions are slippery or varied, I've struggled to trust Mr. Albert.
Before Vital, I only ran Magic Mary's, so I need to try the radial version of those. It'd probably help me hone in on the casing.
Which casings do you feel give you more damping and support? I feel like schwalbe supertrail magic Mary gives more damping than a Butcher grid trail and the radial magic mary offers even more. Could be down to the larger knobs too tough.
I usually have a problem judging if a tire squirms or if it just looses traction as I like to run really low pressures.
Thanks for sharing your thorough experiences with the Albert!
As you eluded to, it does sound like a Magic Mary GRAVITY PRO Radial would provide you the desired grip in loose conditions. That is where the Mary generally shines.
That being said, Mary Radial on the front and Albert Radial on the rear has been a popular combo for many Enduro riders since their launch.
When you ran the MM SDH tires in the past did you also run the same pressure 28/25? Many years ago when I was younger, early 20's I ran MM dh casing tires and loved them. I recently tried running the TC in the SDH casings and thought they were pretty bad from a casing support and damping point of view. Makes me wonder if they are building tires that work for a target audience of riders but get overwhelmed when you weight more than the average DH racer...
Loved the tread but tired of flat spotting rims on rocks that otherwise wouldnt bother me running conti's DH casing.
This actually appeals to me. I have been experimenting with running tannus w/ tube setups in my bikes to completely get away from the maintenance of tubeless. I do run higher pressures then I used to tubeless (30+ psi) and these radial tires would work super well with that setup. I do need a pattern that works well for loose over hardpack though.
Compared to the gravity radial casing, I'd say most mid-weight (ex. Specialized GridTrail, Maxxis EXO+) or gravity casings offer more support. As for damping, I've been impressed by Maxxis latest EXO+, e*thirteen's enduro and gravity casing, and Vee's DH Core casing. I liked Schwalbe's Super Gravity, but it was still a bit more malleable than other enduro/gravity tires, which didn't equate to more damping or calmness, but rather tire roll and rim impacts.
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