Lately I have spent a stupid amount of money experimenting with tires and have recently found something that has been awesome for me so I wanted to share it with you all.
Until recently I was using some 10" off-road tires that I know some folks are using. These can be sourced from Amazon and Ali and other places under various names. They were fantastic but the new 10.6" tires I’m now using are just so much better.
I’m using these on both my 2WD and 4WD off-road boards and so far they are the best tires I’ve tried. They have huge traction, fantastic agility for the size (especially with the Newbee RKTP Gen 2 trucks), and run really well on paved surfaces too. You can see them here compared to the 10" tires I was using previously as well as compared to 8" and 9" MudPluggers.
The rounded profile of these makes them quite smooth even for paved surfaces but they also allow for tight turning on off-road single-track.
I sourced these locally in Canada from Princess Auto. Although the interesting thing is they are actually selling three different brands of very similar, but not identical tires, under the same SKU. I’ve alerted them to this and suggested they just settle on one brand. The ones I’m using are called “Blue Whale.” However these tires are basically just clones of these Kenda tires: Kenda Tires | Turf / Trailer / Specialty | K398A.
Although these are snowblower tires I’ve been running them in 30 C weather and they are great and not wearing any faster than any previous tires I’ve used.
Traction on these is crazy and really unlocks the capabilities of a powerful board for blue, and even some black diamond, trails. I’ve done some crazy rock crawling with these as well as cross-country treks over stupidly rocky and rooty trails and through deep mud and sand and they’ve handled it all like a champ. Can’t wait to try them in the snow.
The only thing is that in terms of matching these with rims, I ended up having to go back to Trampa PhatLads which allowed me to mount these with the 4GS drives with no spacer. I was previously running the smaller 10" tires with spacers and it was a pain. These 10.6" are slightly narrower but still required a spacer. Additionally, I found that I couldn’t get these to seat evenly on the MBS RockStar Pro II XL rims whereas they sit very well on the PhatLads. I’m pretty sure I could get them to seat on the MBS rims if I work on a lip spacer of some kind but can’t be bothered at the moment.
It’s hard to find tires like this that have a large diameter yet are not too wide. I tried many 10" tires in the past that ran terribly on the road and turned like crap because of the width. These are both a little narrower than most 10” tires and also the rounded profile really helps a lot with smoother high-speed running and with tight turning.
That’s a 34mm widener on the picture, but I can adapt the file to any width you like, minimum is 10mm with current design. Don’t want to derail too much so send me a PM if you are interested.
The only other rim I tried is the Rockstar Pro II XL. Even though the lip on the those wheels and the PhatLads is a similar diameter (about 100mm) and the opening of the tire is similarly 100mm, there’s just something that is not sitting right when the tires are inflated. The lip is actually too large. I’m not sure wider rims are going to help and in fact as you can see, these tires are not super wide which I feel is actually a benefit. I was out recently with a friend who was on Trampa IR trucks with Rockstar Pro II XL and 9" Mud Pluggers and I was on these monster 10.6" tires on PhatLads on the Newbee RTKP and I could easily turn way more tightly than he could which was quite incredible.
I recall I also tried with the nylon MBS FiveStar and had a similar issue with the tire not seating properly.
I do have Newbee Pentagrams and can try the tires those with the Newbee lip spacer and report back.
Please do!
I‘m going from 8 to 9“ now, I was given some used 9“ mudpluggers and I ordered some fivestars now.
Since I almost live in the woods maybe later going even bigger would be nice.
Unfortunately I just tried with the Newbee Pentagrams and the 3D-printed lip spacer for 9" and up is too big to fit and without it, it’s too small. I’m quite sure it would be possible to alter the model to make it work but unfortunately I personally have no reason to do that as I’m actually OK using the PhatLads. The PhatLads fit absolutely perfectly with these tires. The tire fits perfectly snuggly with the lip on those rims.
Yeah I can definitely say that for certain kinds of riding, even 9" is too small. I’ve used 9" on various trails where I still didn’t have enough clearance and even 9" MudPluggers don’t have enough traction for some of the trails I’ve been on. They will slip and spin and these monster 10.6" will just eat it all up. It’s especially awesome if you’ve got 4WD but I have them on my 2WD board too and it’s miles ahead of 9" MudPluggers as long you have the torque to turn them.
