Over the weekend, Bielsko-Biała served up some moist and wild World Cup mountain bike racing, and one tire got here out on prime—an unreleased Schwalbe Soiled Dan Gravity Professional tire raced to 2 elite wins by each Tahnee Seagrave and Loic Bruni. With snow, rain, and loads of slippery mud on the Polish DH monitor, riders from a number of groups had been reaching for this new tire. Soiled Dan has been within the Schwalbe downhill line-up for greater than 15 years as a tall, spiky mud tire, however now it seems prefer it’s prepared for a Radial replace, along with Cheesy Chan too, it appears.
Prototype Schwalbe Soiled Dan tire will get Radial development?
It’s actually not that shocking to see Schwalbe’s glorious new Radial development shine on the hardest World Cup DH stage. With its extra radial (versus standard 90° bias-ply) development, these new tires flex extra domestically than a traditional tire with the identical stress. That provides them an nearly magic mixture of extra grip, a bigger contact patch, and the flexibility to run larger pressures in order to not want tire inserts.
After all, that development replace was going to return to different Schwalbe gravity tires. So it was no shock to see Elite Girls’s winner Tahnee Seagrave (on a prototype Orbea DH bike no much less) racing a set of tires clearly labeled as Schwalbe Soiled Dan Gravity Professional – the most recent, simplified nomenclature for Schwalbe’s prime tech downhill tires.
What was a bit extra shocking right here was to see Loic Bruni win simply 2 hours later, on what seems to be the identical tires. The shock is that Bruni’s manufacturing unit Specialised Gravity staff usually races its personal bike sponsor’s tires. And we noticed the staff using some Specialised tires throughout observe runs.
However each time I noticed Bruni on the monitor, he was using a set of the Schwalbes with blacked-out logos. In actual fact, his tires nonetheless had the older fashion Schwalbe graphics and fairly clearly their typical First Experience prototype labels. I’d describe the logos as unexpectedly blacked-out with a sharpie. However in all equity to Bruni’s mechanics, they needed to utterly scrub the bikes and tires after each check run, so probably the Sharpie simply stored sporting off. And the tires he rode within the closing race run had been higher disguised once more.
So what’s really new in these unreleased Schwalbe Soiled Dan Radials?
The obvious new function the place we may see was the simplified Schwalbe graphics as first launched on their latest gravel tire replace. In addition to the brand new logotype and geometric new swallow emblem, Schwalbe is attempting to simplify what they print on the facet of their tires.
As to the tread itself, it’s a bit difficult to make certain because the Soiled Dan already appears to have 2 variants with the identical title – 1 lighter, narrower path (Tremendous Race) model options shorter blocky knobs… and 1 heavier, wider gravity (Tremendous Downhill) model options taller spikier knobs and interspersed Curveclaw knobs between each different shoulder knob for further off-camber grip.
However it does appear to be this new Schwalbe Soiled Dan Gravity Professional Radial tread is just not fairly as tall and spiky because the earlier model. The tread format is identical, however the blocks seem shorter and fewer tapered. And particularly the Curveclaws are there, simply a lot shorter (and sure much less versatile) than on the present Dan.
Curveclaws or None?
That may very well be due merely to the truth that Schwalbe simply launched the all-new front- & rear-specific Shredda treads when Radial development debuted final yr. The Shredda Entrance was similar to the outdated Dan, simply constructed extra burly. Now this new prototype Soiled Dan Gravity Professional radial tire seems to be extra versatile with extra substantial knobs just like the SHredda, however not so tall.
The brand new Soiled Dans had been usually arduous to identify on the wet & muddy Polish DH World Cup, particularly since many had been being raced with blacked-out logos by groups with different tire sponsors. However we nonetheless managed to seek out a number of totally different variants.
The one above on EU-champ Lisa Baumann’s Commencal Supreme has no seen sipes reduce into every tread block. However it does has the smaller Curveclaws.
This tire – belonging to one of many Rogue Racing – SR Suntour riders – options the brand new Schwalbe graphics with a clean white house for testing notes rather than the ‘Gravity Professional’ label. And most curiously, it doesn’t have the additional Curveclaws between its shoulder knobs.
I’m wondering if it may be a lighter Path casing or narrower 2.0″ width, like we noticed with the earlier Tremendous Race tire? Or maybe it was simply one other experiment?
Sipes or Clean Knobs?
We caught up with a clear set of each prototype tires in one of many Schwalbe-sponsored staff’s paddock to get a better look. Right here we are able to see the siped or non-siped tread block variants. And you too can see that the brand new Schwalbe Soiled Dan Gravity Professional tires now function tread blocks not a lot taller than the Cheesy Chan tire within the background.
Whereas within the pits we additionally picked up a couple of radial rumors about why this unreleased tire was so extremely in demand. It seemed like all however official affirmation that these new tires do function Radial development hidden inside. Crew mechanics did affirm that they not want tire inserts when racing on these tires. It was hinted that we may most likely affirm which groups had been utilizing the brand new Radial tires solely, as they most likely don’t have tire insert sponsors any longer!
We had been additionally led to imagine that the precise angle of the tires internal cloth is already totally different from what we’ve seen with the Albert, Magic Mary & Shredda. And we’ve been instructed to count on much more new gravity tire growth from Schwalbe.
Schwalbe Cheesy Chan & Extra New Radials coming quickly?
The obvious assumption we may make from that’s to count on an up to date Cheesy Chan, too. Along with that earlier Cheesy Chan hiding behind the brand new Schwalbe Soiled Dan Radials, we noticed multiple different staff with this common DH tire developed with Amaury Pierron a couple of years again.
However we additionally noticed this unknown prototype tire above. It seems to function the identical siped shoulder knobs of the brand new Albert, paired with boxy pairs of siped middle lugs just like these of those new Soiled Dans. Might it’s one thing like a much less aggressive Shredda for drier loam? Or a extra aggressive Albert for when the hardpack will get moist too?
I suppose there may be a bunch of recent Schwalbe Gravity & Path Radial mountain bike tires within the works. And we’ll have our work reduce out for us staying on prime of all of them!
