Not tired of tyres

I'm feeling optimistic that Spring will soon be here after a weeek of sunshine in London, even though the forecast for this weekend is not great, so it's a fond farewell to my Panaracer TrailRaker mud tyres and hello again to my now quite worn Maxxis Flyweight 490s. Luckily they won't need to last much longer, except for the occasional dry hardpack summer race, as I'll hopefully get a pair of Maxxis Crossmarks this week, in their 2.1", 120tpi 62a eXCeption series incarnation.

Granted, it is a 40g per wheel weight penalty from the 490s to the Crossmarks, but I'm hopeful that the larger volume should help me avoid pinch punctures, while still allowing low pressures to be used for grip and lowered rolling resistance. I've only pinch punctured once while racing as far as I can remember, and that was hitting a drop-off too hard while using about 18psi in the rear wheel. Ooops. Judging by the amount of miles of racing, training and road commuting use my 490s have done over the years, the 62a rubber seems to last quite well, so the Crossmarks should be good for a while.

Maxxis have got some new cross-country tyres out too, but not in the eXception series yet. The models are named Monorail and Ridgeline and "offers spacing to grab rough and sandy surfaces, while the stability bars keep flex and rolling resistance to a minimum" and "masters dry trails, offering athletes awesome lean angles with little sacrificed momentum" respectively. The design of the Ridgeline looks very interesting so it will be intriguing to see the first reviews come in.

I'm still awaiting confirmation of whether our team entry has been accepted for Mountain Mayhem, but all those who applied should be contacted by early next week apparently. In the meantime, entries for Sleepless In The Saddle are not yet being accepted, so I suppose I'd better complete our form for Marin Dusk 'til Dawn....