My absolutely all time favourite mtb tire for all around riding
front: Continental Vertical Pro 2.3
rear: Continental Explorer Pro 2.1
DH does all the research, but boy oh boy can I ever tell the difference!
For racing, he gets me geared up with
front & rear: Continental Explorer Super Sonic 2.1 with Stans no-tubes.
The weight saving is about 200g, and the traction is very similar.
Better traction helps in lots of scenarios: climbing, obstacles, cornering, sketchy conditions.
I don't "read" the bike well, but I sure love the right rubber!
H&B
~T~
The butterflies are within you.
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Tonight didn't go very well. I wasn't really in the mood to begin with, and we didn't ride very far to warm up before the hard stuff started. I didn't make it up the steep muddy hill after a creek crossing, and I fell a couple of times for no good reason. We had a bigger crowd tonight, and did a lot of stopping to discuss various obstacles etc, and so I just never got going very well.
We spent a lot of time working on popping the front wheel to get over a log, and jumped a small log repeatedly. Altogether we rode less than 3 miles.
Overall I really enjoyed the MTB clinic, but now it's time to just get out on the trail and ride.