Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Bontrager "ACX" Tubeless Ready Tires



After running the racy Dry X Tubeless Ready tires up in Decorah, Iowa about a month ago and finding them to be a bit sketchy on their technical trails, I was leery of running them again up there. Especially on the front where I seemed to wash out in switchbacks and off camber corners. Fortunately the good fellows at Gary Fisher and Bontrager have provided the ACX for just such an instance as this.

The ACX is a stalwart of the Bontrager tire line. An all round trail tire with some bite. Just what I needed for the Tubeless Ready wheelset up front. Those blocky treads were looking good to me for keeping me right side up in those off camber trail situations while still being relatively lightweight.

My digital scale read these out to be 650 grams each. Note, these do not have the slightly beefier "AR" sidewall protection, so those tires with that feature would have weighed in just a bit heavier.

The plan is for now to try the ACX up front and retain the Dry X as a low rolling resistance rear tire. Hopefully I'll have a chance to roll these on the same trails as I did the full Dry X set up on earlier for a better comparison. If things get too crazy at the Ballyhoo, then perhaps that'll have to wait. We'll see! I'll post more when I get a few rides in on these.

Special shout out to Poppa Vinny on his lil' bundle o joy and new job promotion this past week! Woot!

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