24 March 2011 - 9:45Wheels and Tires

Two of my favorite things.

I’ve been building a fair amount of wheels these days, which has kept me pretty busy. Some of which, are for B29 team riders.

I just shipped out a set of wheels to Chris Muddiman, you might read his blog sometimes. He wanted a set of wheels for racing and general kicking about. We decided that the Bike29 I9/Arch wheelset was the way to go. And seeing as how Chris will be representing B29 this year, I decided to give his wheels a little extra sauce in the form of rally stripes. These wheels look really cool when they are spinning.

I’ve also received 2 new tires that I am anxious to try out.

First up is the Kenda Slant 6. This tire was listed in a lot of my distributors catalogs last year, but the tires never actually materialized. Finally, it arrives almost a full year later. Available in 2 sizes (2.2 and 2.0), this tire looks as if it would be a pretty decent all around XC tire. Think of it like a Small Block 8, but with bigger knobs. Six to be precise. These knobs have a different look to them, ramped for lower rolling resistance, but they are also stepped. There are a lot of leading edges on the knob blocks, which I would imagine makes them grab on to the ground a little more tenaciously. The tires are weighing in in the mid to high 600g range. Chris is going to be giving these a try, as he is a big fan of the SB8.

Up next is another tire I have been waiting for, the WTB Bronson 2.2. Named after Hollywood baddass Chuck Bronson. Think of a Wolverine with bigger knobs. The tread pattern is typical from what you’d expect from WTB (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it), a directional chevron, with ramped center tread and triangular blocks that get deeper as they reach the edges of the tire. The casing is pretty round and high volume, but the tire profile is actually quite squareish. The side knobs are quite aggressive, and look like they’d dig right in when leaning hard into a turn. The weight is quite respectable too, at around 750g. These tires might find their way onto Shreddie for SSAP.