I’ve been running this tire as my MTB rear for years, and have always wanted to try it on my KH29. On the MTB, it offers excellent grip for the local trails, which are mostly packed dirt mixed with sandstone and some mild sand, while not being TOO grippy, so it breaks loose easily and can drift a bit when the rear end is unweighted.
But the main reason I wanted to try it for muni is because of the nice rounded profile. I’m always challenged by road cambers, and since many forum members have recommended a more rounded tire as a solution to this, the small block 8 seemed a worthy candidate.
So today I finally tried it on the 29er, and yeah, it met all expectations. It rolls real sweet, very fast on the paved sections too, and gave me much better control on cambered surfaces. Probably not a great choice for other riding styles, but for xc muni on my trail conditions, I think it rocks, and wanted to share a good find.
Thanks for sharing, My Qu-Ax 29" has a kenda karma 2.2" on it, this is also good on the road and for xc trails. As with the small block 8 this also has a round profile and seems to be a good all rounder.
Yes, I would. It’s probably not a direct 50/50 compromise, I would say there’s probably better choices if you do mostly paved surfaces, but if you do let’s say 20-30% paved and the rest dirt, it’s a great choice IMO for xc muni. Keep in mind most of my experience with it is on fairly hard-packed dirt. But it seems to do just fine in the sandy sections of my local trails too.
Another point – it is not very thick, so thorns do puncture through it more. But when I switched to a slime-filled tube this problem went away.