WTB ‘08 29″er Tires: First Impressions- Vulpine 29″er
November 19th, 2007 by Guitar Ted
The last of the three sets of new 2008 WTB tire introductions for 29″ers that we have is the Vulpine. It’s a very condition specific tire, being a semi-slick. Let’s take a closer look at what I found out during my first few rides on them.
First of all, here’s some measurements taken from my mounting of the Vulpines on a Salsa Delgado Disc wheelset. The casings width and height are the same at 52.5mm. The outer knob to outer knob width is 52.4mm. A word on the profile of the casing. It basically is split into two “zones”. The middle third or so is very flat and has the minimalistic tread pattern. The outer thirds have the treaded portion of the casing and fall away from the center section at angles. This affects how the tire feels while riding to a great degree.
You notice this as you transition from going straight and verticle to a slight lean as if going into a corner. The sides of the casing make the bike want to fall over to the side of the lean angle, as if the wheel is “flopping”. This was a surprising feeling. I have not had a tire with this trait before. I played around with some ideas and arrived at a solution that seemed to work well for this tire. Instead of leaning over gradually into corners, I aggressively threw the bike over to a severe lean angle and bore my weight down into the outside pedal. Much like a skier would do. This seemed to be more to the Vulpines liking and I could tell that the side knobs were gripping when I did this by the change in sound of the tire and the slight increase in rolling resistance.
Now, let’s get one thing out of the way here. This tire is fast! Okay, enough about that. Just keep that part in mind as you read the rest of this. The obvious low rolling resistance is what makes this tire the way it is, but some other things were quite noticeable that may not appear to the casual observer. One of those things is that this tire runs like a skinny tire. It doesn’t have a huge casing and it doesn’t have much tread so you just can not expect it to be much like any of the other 29″er tire choices out there. I got it pushed past it’s limit on a tight corner with some black dirt that was just slick enough to give the tread on the sides of the Vulpine the slip. I went down! On anything that was dry and hardpacked I was golden. I could throw that bike over and the tread would hold me up just fine. I suspect that a loose over hardpack might give this tire some fits, but hey! It’s got minimal tread, so again, we can’t expect miracles here!
I had the tires on my On One Inbred set up as a single speed. In a typical out of the saddle grunt, you could definitely get the rear to spin loose, so this may be not your first choice on a course with lots of climbing for a powerful single speeder. Folks that sit and spin it out shouldn’t have this situation. The other surprise was how it knifed through really loose soil/mud. I think the skinny profile and angled side tread has some effect on this here. The Vulpine wanted to dig into sandy pits that I encountered and not “float” up over the sand. It also wanted to cut through the slop I encountered at some water crossings down into more solid ground. That said, since there wasn’t any sort of paddle tread on the Vulpine, it would spin out pretty easily in the slop. The good side of that is there isn’t any thing to hold the mud on the casing, so you can fling it off and continue forward without a mud weight penalty.
So far I have been impressed with this tire by it’s ease of spin up and it’s fast rolling nature. I have a hill that I keep a record of my maximum speed for climbing up and I broke that record to smithereens with the Vulpine. (Interestingly, I had the old record set with the same bike shod with Nanoraptors) So, fast isn’t any problem for the Vulpine. Finding the perfect course for it, well that is another issue all together. We’ll keep searching and report back with more soon!
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What’s the weight?
Does it come in Kevlar bead?
I’m planning on getting a pair to test …. May be a good TI option or gdr tire I donno…. Hows the side walls Gted?
Desert9r: read the “WTB ‘08 ires: Ou of the Box” post. Click the linky above the comments here..
slowerthansnot: The sidewalls seem fairly stiff, much like the Prowlers. I am going to dump a bit more pressure out and see how it goes.
I agree, these will be excellent gravely/fire road tires!
The $64K question: How do they compare to the SB8 and CrossMark. These two tires seem to me to be the obvious competition to the new Vulpine.
Kosmo: I would have to disagree there. I think the big competition here is Stan’s Crow tire. The Crow is obviously a tubeless compatible tire, so it has that advantage on the Vulpine. However, the Vulpine has a stiffer, beefier casing, and more side tread. (It could be argued that the Stan’s Crow has no tread)
The weight is in the advantage of the Crow, but again, it’s more fragile than a Vulpine. Interesting contrasts and comparisons with these two tires meant for racing.
The Smallblock 8 and the Cross Mark are treaded tires that are far more tractable and wider than either the Crow or Vulpine. They are more of a fast XC/trail tire that could be used for multiple conditions. The Crow and Vulpine are even more condition sensitive than these two.
My opinion, but this Vulpine isn’t really anything like the two tires you mention.
Gted-
I’m going to have to agree with kozmo, there is more slick than knobby on the Crossmark, and the SB8 is so heavily treaded/treaded in such a way that I would compare the pattern to the inverted tread of the Serfas Drifter.
Furthure more I would say that WTB is the lead manuf. in # of semi-slicks, But then again I ride Exis as street tires and Fire XCs/nevegals off road.
Desert9r: You saying a crossMark is a semi-slick is like saying billy gibbons is clean shaven!
The Ritchey SpeedMax is Knobbier!
WTF-
I just went to Maxxis.com and Bike29.com, and they show 2 different tread pattern! ??
Bike29 show a semi-slick with Nevegal knobs, and Maxxis.com shows a ‘hollow’-knob Michelin AT/XC style tread.
How would this do as an all-rounder type tire? Like for that type of ride that’s just as much road as trail?
mac (aka farley): Well, that is a hard question to answer from where I sit. If it were me, I would do the Vulpine if and only if the trails I normally rode were buff, or fairly open. They would have to be dry to tacky most of the time, and free from “kitty litter” over hardpack, especially in the corners. Rocks would be okay if you are a lighter guy or a finesse rider. Sand would be a no-no.
Typically I err on the side of dirt performance and sacrifice the road performance in a situation like you put forth.
The Vulpine is like having a hybrid tire on your mtb on pavement though, so it’s really tempting!