Michelin has been making moves recently both on and off road. We got home from their Road Power tire press launch (full story soon) with just enough time to turn around and head to Sea Otter, where it was the off road segment’s turn to shine. The big news was the addition of mountain bike legend Cam Zink to the list of sponsored riders for 2016. While you probably won’t find yourself throwing threes off drops at Rampage or setting the Guinness World record for the longest backflip, Zink’s expertise and tire abuse should only help to make Michelin mountain bike tires better…
It wasn’t clear if the tires on Zink’s YtT Tues were current prototypes or something he’s been on for awhile, but they look very similar to the current Wild Rock’R 2 tire. Running 26 x 2.35″ front and rear, it’s possible that he was sent these tires before the Wild Rock’R 2 was released, or that Michelin is playing with new compounds here. Regardless, Zink seems to be excited about the partnership with Michelin passing along this from Zink:
“I gained interest in Michelin because of what I have heard they are doing,” said Zink. “The first set of tires I rode were absolutely incredible and it wasn’t even the newer products! They showed me some of the things they would have ready for testing soon and it was a no-brainer to partner with them. Michelin’s design process is incredibly quick and efficient. Most brands that are quick to develop new products usually do so without taking their professional’s input, which Michelin realizes is one of their biggest asset. I am very pumped to be a part of the things to come!”
By that little quote we should probably expect some new stuff from Michelin very soon!
VEE Tire Co.
Moving from Michelin to Vee Tire Co., we move onto the Flow Snap and Flow Smasher which have to be some of the softest, stickiest rubber we’ve seen.
These new treads from Vee Tire Co. were so new that there was very little concrete information on the two, other than they will be offered in 27.5 x 2.4″. Shown with a 120 TPI tubeless ready casing with Vee’s Gravity Core and Synthesis sidewall treatment, the tires also list Tackee rubber, but if we had to guess from feel the rubber was softer than the typical 48a durometer of their other Tackee tires. Perhaps it was just how tall the knobs were on the Smasher – it’s a straight up motocross tire for wet conditions with a lot of real estate for trimming knobs to your preference. Expect to see these in a few months with pricing TBA.
