Mountain King

Continental
Mountain King 2.4

I rode my very first race in many many years and was given some tires to test.

Well I put a set of 2.4 Mountain King's on my wheels and I noticed the lightness and aggressive tread straight away.

A few laps in to the event I was leaning the bike further than I expected and thought  that these tyres did  infact stick really well. Actually in the whole event I belive I lost traction  the front end only once. On the rare occasion I tried to skid the back end around I found that the the back end really did dig in and I was amazed at how hard it was to loose grip and slide. I guess thats a good thing..,

These tyres did roll very well over a whole range of surfaces from dry sand to loose rock to plant litter and met sticky mud. They made a great sound in the sticky black mud and managed to roll on through. The mountain king did not shead mud as easily as the Speed king which seemed to do a part the mud like Moses and the exodus.

These tyres have exceptional tracking. They are directional and the rear tyre did work very well under hill climbs and decents. I cant fault these tyres at all and I recomend them to any mid to heavy usage. And i mean XC to Freeride  not Freeride to DH.

Not quite as quick as the "Speed King" but vastly more traction with slightly more rolling resistance.  A round profile that did not worry me at all and I was tempted to put a 2.4 on the front and a 2.2 on the rear, but that might just be the olde skool comming out in me.

I weigh 95 kg and did inflate the tyres to the pressure ndicated on the sidewall (58psi)... I put in about 60. I did not puncture and I did not damage not even one knob on the tyre in the whole 12 hour race. Continentals new HOT CHILLI compound seemed to work really well.   

Its good to find that Continental are once again producing some decent off road tyres.

Tripple tested a 2.2 on the rear and stated that it had great traction.
Stevo tested a 2.2 on the front and said it definately saved him at least once from a front slide out.

Sam was eyeing off my SPEED KING 2.3 and was wishing it for his new front tyre

AMB aslo had a feature on the same tyres this month by coincidence