TECH: TYRE TESTING

This weekend was spent testing at Afan, riding hard and seeing if my new front tyre - the Kenda Blue Groove Stick-E L3RPRO 2.0 - was any good.

I'd earlier aired it up, tubeless with yellow tape, on my Stan's Olympic Rim and was excited to see what it could do so I tested the Blue Groove on some loamy singeltrack. It performed well, nothing spectacular but nothing scary either. A good start.

I had my reservations before the Afan weekender though. My main concerns were:

• How would a 445g tyre that had thin and porous sidewalls (it took a week to seal, but was easy to get seated with a track pump) hold air on some of the roughest and fastest singletrack around?
• Would the tyre burp and would the sidewalls hold out against rock scuffing?
• Due to the large gap between centre and outer knobs, would there be a significant fall off in traction when leaning the tyre into turns?

Some quite serious questions to be levelled then! Conditions at Afan were to be very favourable though and perfect for the recommended use of a Blue Groove. With only a few wet sections almost the entire trail network was dry and dusty. The rocky stretches were hardpack but there were also a good amount of sandy and loose over hardpack sections. Running at 20psi there was only one moment of panic as I launched a lazy two wheel drifter around a 20mph corner...everywhere else the tyre did great with no worries. There were alot of heavy hits and sidewall scrapers but no damage to the tyre or burping.

I think this could be the front tyre of choice for the race season - I have certainly been impressed despite its less than confidence inspring appearance and stats. The soft compund rubber does the business and there is no wear so far to the tyre after 8 hours of heavy abuse. It should be OK in light mud as well due to the widely spaced pattern and biger side knobs but I will report on that just as soon as I have to ride my bike through a swamp. For now though this tread is staying put.

Get yours from your local Kenda stockist.