Tired of choosing between wide tires for traction and skinny tires for weight? The newest Maxxis Wide Trail tires look like they’ll offer both – with the approval of Nino Schurter, Kate Courtney, and the rest of the SCOTT-SRAM MTB Racing Team.
As mountain bike rims have evolved, tires have changed as well to keep pace. Maxxis introduced their Wide Trail tire design to specifically interface with wider rims. The design takes advantage of the increased footprint without making the resulting tire shape too tall or square. We’ve seen a bunch of wide trail options for more aggressive tire options, but now it’s coming to the XC side of things with a light weight tire that is still true to size.
Maxxis claims that these tires are optimized to fit a 30mm internal rim width. They’ll still work on rims as narrow as 25mm, but don’t go any narrower than that. You’ll also need to make sure they’ll fit your bike. Many XC bikes are still fairly limited on tire clearance, especially at the chainstay area. Maxxis recommends a minimum of 6mm of clearance at all of the key points shown on the Scott bike above. Maxxis points out that these will come to a full 2.4″ wide when inflated to 25psi on a 30mm rim, so clearance is key. Note that the bikes listed in the chart above have all been approved for use of these tires.
If you have the room, you’ll have the choice between the Aspen or the slightly chunkier Rekon Race. Both are available in 29 x 2.40″ WT 120 TPI casings with dual compound rubber and EXO reinforced sidewalls. Of course, the tires are tubeless-ready but still just weigh 720g for the Aspen and 760g for the Rekon Race.
Available this summer, the tires will sell for $70 each.
