291 – Trust Issues

It’s funny how things can get in your head.

Ever since my little crash a couple months ago, I just haven’t felt the same on my mountain bike. Instead of going out and raging on the trails like I have for most of the season, I’ve found myself riding tentatively. My eyes are down, looking at obstacles and trail conditions, instead of up, choosing lines and planning ahead. This is never a recipe for fast or effective riding, but I just haven’t been able to fully shake it.

The feeling got worse a couple weeks back, when I was doing some work on my bike up on the stand, and noticed for the first time how worn out my tires were starting to look. Mountain bike tires are a funny thing, because if you primarily ride on the soft dirt trails of the Midwest, the tread knobs will almost never wear out. This is particularly true of a long-wearing tire like the Panaracer Fire XC Pros that I’ve been running for well over two years. But a closer inspection showed that the rubber was starting to harden and crack, meaning that it won’t flex to meet the dirt and rocks in quite the same way.

Is it a marginal difference? Probably. Could I continue to ride these tires for many more miles without serious problems? More than likely. But it was in my head now, and if there’s one thing that I’ve carried over from my motorcycle experience, it’s that once you can’t trust a tire any more, it’s time to change it. Even if the problem with the tire is mostly between your ears, you won’t be able to ride it the same way, and trying to press your luck is just asking for more problems.

The search for new rubber turned out to be more complicated than I expected. In 2010, when I decided on the Fire XC Pros, they were the consensus choice for a solid all-around tire, not great at anything, but pretty good at everything. They enjoyed broad popularity among weekend warriors and racers alike, loved for their relatively low rolling resistance, good cornering and drive grip, and resistance to flatting.

Since that time, everybody in the business of making off-road bicycle tires has upped their game. The plethora of choices out there is dizzying, with cross-country tires in three different wheel sizes (26″, 27.5″, 29″), widths ranging from 1.75 to 2.3, and tread patterns and rubber compounds for every conceivable condition. I was looking for something as versatile as the tire I was replacing, but maybe just a touch faster, meaning less rolling resistance.

My first instinct was to stay in the Panaracer stable, having had such a good experience with my previous set until very recently. They came out with an all-new lineup of mountain bike tires last year, and the Soar, in particular, caught my attention. Billed as an all-condition XC tire, they seem to be the logical successor to the Fires, although Panaracer is still making the latter. From pictures and descriptions, they looked ideal, but for whatever reason, they haven’t caught on with the mainstream MTB public, and so there’s been very little feedback in terms of reviews.

I perused similar offerings from Schwalbe, Kenda, Continental and others, but kept coming back to the Soar. It seems that most of the other manufacturers are making more specialized tires these days, banking on people being happy to change their tires to suit the conditions on a given trail and day. But I’m supremely lazy in that regard, and just want a tire that’ll do anything I ask of it, without a lot of fuss.

So after hemming and hawing for weeks, trying to decide what to order, if I should order anything at all, I decided to roll the dice on the Soar. The rain-delayed MoMBA XC Classic was coming up, and the last thing I wanted to do was go out and try to race on a set of tires that just didn’t inspire confidence any more.

They showed up at my door today, and after swapping them in, I went for a quick test ride. Rolling up the road to MoMBA, I was immediately impressed at how quiet they were, relative to the square knobs of the Fires. I left the pressures sky-high (50 psi) just to see what they’d do, and rolled through Twisted at an easy pace. The high pressures predictably led to some bouncing, but the cornering and drive grip didn’t seem to suffer much. I dropped them to 30 psi before starting Upper Stealth, and they really came into their own. The ride felt plush, and the grip was impressive even on wet leaves.

I’ll need some more miles and varied conditions to really evaluate these tires, but just from first impressions, they may be the best kept secret in mountain biking. The forecast for tomorrow is calling for rain, so I’ll be putting them to the test right away!