Geax was one of the first to put out a tubular mountain bike tire, an item that remains mostly in the pro realm, but as with all top end technologies, they tend to serve as proving grounds for concepts that make their way to normal items soon enough.
That appears to be the case here, with new Saguaro Evo team prototype tires showing up at the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek under local fast guy Tommy Rodgers. Geax’s normal tubeless tires are made with 120tpi casings, but he said these use a much, much higher thread count, likely matching coming closer to the 290tpi cotton casings found in the tubulars. He said they felt amazingly soft and compliant, even at 30psi (a higher pressure than he normally runs). The “EVO” looked handwritten and could be the moniker for the new top-level tubeless offering.
UPDATE: Just spoke with Geax brand manager Ken Avery who had this to say: “These have a new ultralight casing based on our TNT (tube-no tube) tubeless technology. It’s a very limited run made for a few folks in the US, and it’s super lightweight while still being fully tubeless and offering good sidewall protection. We’re doing a controlled test, there’s no release date planned for this year. It’s an early stage prototype. I can’t say what the thread count is, but they’re higher than 120tpi but not as high as our tubulars.”
Additional pics below…
