A new upstart out of Bozeman, Montana is aiming to fill a gap in the tire market where the bigger companies have yet to fill in. While there has been a strong movement towards wider and even plus-sized trail and gravel road riding, the tire companies themselves haven’t really been keeping up with the trends. Just think how many different 23mm wide road tires are available on the market (who still even rides those?) and compare that with the number of 700x40c tires or 27.5×2.8″ ones? Part of that is the inertia of companies that have been making tires for decades, and part is just that it is expensive to make new tire molds.
So Terrene Tires is taking another approach. They are going for that niche market, with three new treads and two casing construction versions per tire. They’ll start off with a meaty trail tire, an aggressive studded fat bike tire, and a faster rolling dirt road tire, with a fourth mixed-surface touring tire coming later this fall. Details are still a bit limited on the tires, but have a look below at what we’ve seen and know now, with more on the way…
Terrene Tires is essentially a start-up from a couple of young guys that had worked for the bigger companies doing design and supply chain management, but were tired of the slow movement of the industry. So they’ve gone out on their own and aim to put a bit more creativity into tire design and selection, one of the most affordable upgrades you can do to your bike and by far the easiest way to change how your bike rides and feels.
Terrene also want to make consumer (and shop) tire selection easy; that means they intend to keep it simple. They say they’ll keep the techy babble to a minimum, so you don’t need to try to decipher acronyms or figure out what a different durometer of rubber even means. So their tires will come in two simple Light or Tough versions. Light will be the high-end supple casing that balances light weight with regular trail-capable durability (not a race-only tire.) Then Tough tires will get a heavier anti-snakebite casing with reinforced sidewalls and extra puncture protection appropriate to its use. You know who you are if you’re gonna need the Tough version.
Three tires will debut when Terrene officially launches at Interbike in September. The Chunk is their all-purpose trail riding tire. It is designed to work on the recent crop of wide profile trail riding rims and gets big tightly spaced and reinforced shoulder knobs for secure cornering. Two rows of more openly spaced center knobs should hook up over loose surfaces while still clearing mud. We don’t know concrete sizing yet, but do know the Chunk will at least come in an all-around trail 29×2.3″ version.
The Wazia is a fat bike tire with screw in studs (the photo above right shows it pre-stud installation; you can see the small holes where they thread into the center treads blocks.) Designed for proper winter fat biking on snow and ice, the Wazia combines trimmed down light shoulder knobs and siped central tread that will flex to find whatever grip is available in soft and loose terrain, with four alternating central rows of tread blocks to take screw-in studs. It should turn out to be an excellent option for hitting the frozen trails this winter.
We don’t yet have really much information on the Elwood, which is to be a dirt road tire, other than to say that it will be wide and with a fast rolling tread, designed to maintain control in soft and loose cornering. Likewise, there is also a fourth tire that won’t be available as soon, but will still come out in early autumn. The Honalee will be a durable all-road touring tire aimed at giving the dirt, gravel, and off-road touring riders another good option to choose from.
We’ve been told that we’ll get a chance to ride each of the three new tires (we’ll have to wait on dear Honalee and her magic dragon) when we roll up to the OutDoor Demo before the Interbike show, so keep an eye out for our first impressions in the dry and loose desert terrain then. These three new Terrene tires will be available in September through your local bike shops, care of a couple of the industry’s major parts distributors. Terrene is holding off on opening up their website until the official launch, but you can sign up for their mailing list if you are so inclined.
