Continental “X King” 29″er Tires: On Test: by Grannygear
Timing is everything, and when you are furiously turning wrenches in waning daylight in order to make the night ride on time, having the UPS truck stop in front of your house can throw a wrench in the schedule! It might mean a new shiny thing has arrived and will require immediate use!
And, it did. Fresh from the mould direct to the West Coast offices of twentynineinches.com were a pair of brand new, Continental X-King 2.2 29″er tires, all shiny black and smelling like a new car. Mmmm…smells good. Looks good too. So, naturally the tires I had just mounted up on the Breezer Cloud 9 Pro test bike had to come back off and these went on in their place, but not before I weighed them and poked at them a bit.
This is what Conti has to say about the X-Kings from the website:
The allround genius!
Its developers say it can do anything! Its riders say, “That’s my tyre!”
Super fast, but nevertheless with a good grip, the X-King was developed with the Topeak Ergon mountain bike professional team. Despite pronounced studs, the X-King rolls off smoothly and very quietly. No matter if you are on your own or in a team, with Race and Mountain King, the super-light X-King easily covers many uses, ranging from cross country/race to Alpcross. The X-King simply leaves its competitors behind. Its Black Chili Compound offers a solid grip and is self-cleaning. The shoulder lugs provide absolute stability in curves negotiated at high speeds.
Note: Image from Continental’s website showing the 26″er mosel.
They immediately struck me as similar to the recently reviewed Schwalbe Rocket Rons, having multiple rows of offset, smallish knobs all the way over to the side wall. The center knobs form a center row of tread that looked like it would sit up and roll well. There is a slight chevron design in the rows of knobs with one knob linking to the next, but not actually touching, etc. Kinda’ like ducks in a flying ‘V’. I snapped some quick pics in the fading light of day and went riding.
Specs so far: Weights were 693g and 699g, very consistent. I measured them right after installation (w/tubes) on the 27mm (external width) WTB Laser Disc Trail rims on the Breezer Cloud 9 Pro. They were right at 2.04”/52mm wide at the sidewall bulge. There is no ProTection or RS carcass yet for the 29″er versions…bummer, so that will wait a bit. Maybe 2012? Most likely.
They have a slightly peaky profile and just bristle with those small knobs. I bet they will be a very good hard pack tire. I set a well worn but still useful Rocket Ron next to the X-King just to compare. Both are at the same pressure and with tubes on the WTB rims.
Rolling out into the night on the city streets toward our gathering spot for the night ride, they felt very smooth rolling and I could not feel or hear much of any whine or buzz from the knobs. More riding to come, of course, but the normal loop on the mix of fire road, sandy wash crossings, fast single track and rocky creek bed gave the initial impression of a fast rolling, confident steering tire on the dryer hard pack conditions that winter’s waning has left us to play on.
Much more to come as the miles and smiles continue, and we will see if the first impressions hold true. I remember thinking, when I saw them at Interbike last year, that the X-Kings would be the tire for me out of all the new Continental tire offerings for 2011. So far, so good.
Note: Continental Tires submitted these tires to Twenty Nine Inches for test/review at no charge. We are not being paid, nor bribed for this review. We will strive to give our honest thoughts and opinions throughout.
Any idea on mounting these up with stans on arches?
@mward
I have it on good authority that although they are not tubeless ‘rated’, there are no restrictions on it either from Conti.
I will try them very soon on some Stan’s rims. Stay tuned.
grannygear
Will they be a good front tire if i have race king 2.2 on the back or are they too narrow?
It is a bit of a pet topic of me, but really… These tires look promising, but what is the use for them? The tread should make it a good allround racing tire, but the low tech, heavy casing makes it look bad among tires that serve a comparable purpose.
You might just as well get some Karma 2.0″, which are as wide if not marginally smaller, have more than enough grip, roll well and are on average about 350 grams lighter a pair. RR 2.25″ is wider, probably has more grip and still a lot lighter. It is not like you get heaps more of puncture resistance with the Conti’s, that make it outshine its competitors.
It would be nice if Conti would make a clear choice. Make racing treads with racing casings and compounds and create some voluminous, puncture resistant, grippy that still roll well for those that need a good allround tire. This one seems to be too in between to be good at anything.
I’m with JeroenK. My first thought when reading this article was “that’s a good looking tire” followed by “eww…it’s heavy though…”.
Any chance of a Super Sonic version? Or is that still only a 26″ technology?
@miranmtb : That’s how I will be running this tire when I get one. It is the way most folks will do it, likely as not.
@JeroenK, @dgaddis : To be fair though, the Racing Ralph is noted for its thin, fragile sidewalls, the Karma for being stubborn to convert to tubeless. (Well, I have heard that about the Racing Ralph as well. 😉 )
Typically Conti tires set up tubeless very well. I have never had an issue doing that with any of their models. Also, they tend to stretch significantly when set up tubeless. I have seen measurements grow to 2mm+ from initial set up with Continental tires with no other adverse side effects noted.
That said, we all know Continental has some very desirable tire technology awaiting 29″er tires in the German facility. Currently, 29″er production is all Asian based. Once 29″er tires are brought in to Germany for production, the technology will be applied. I have been assured that will happen sooner than later. Then perhaps we will see lighter tire weights from Conti along with very desirable technical features.
Still, compared to some tires out there, these weights are not terrible. (Geax being one other brand I can think of that is comparable)
I agree with JeroenK and dgaddis. The tread and volume look promising, but the weight ruins it. I’ve never had a problem running Rocket Ron or Racing Ralphs tubeless (even before they were tubless approved). And in the sharp pointy rocks of Arizona I haven’t had any sidewall issues (knock on wood). The rotational weight savings of the Schwalbe line of tires means that Conti won’t be seeing any of my money.
I’m pretty sure that the R&D budget for 2011 was firmly aimed at establishing and solidifying the 26″ foothold they conquered last year with their Race King Supersonic tyre. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if 2012 would fill in the holes in the 29″ segment.
I am annoyed by their erronous width indication though!
Promising looking, but would like to see it lighter and wider (maybe it will grow some). I recognize that usually means thinner sidewalls, but in my experience the trade off is worth in both weight and suppleness.
Am I right in thinking the 29er line are not Black Chilli compound? In the past the standard compound has been too hard and not grippy enough for my liking…
These look like the old IRC Mythos tires
I don’t know ? I have been running Stan’s Ravens all year long front and rear for approx 2 to 3 years and have no issues with them except in freeze thaw slime or slime covered roots.
I am not sure you can find a better race and dare I say all around tire.
SS RICH
Looking forward to the full review GG. Let’s see how they go.
I have not used Contis since the old explorer days as was so let down by them I have not been brave enough to return.
I was hoping the XKing would make a grippier, tougher RR 2.25 replacement but from what I am reading here my hopes are almost already dashed.
It must be said that at least in pre tubeless ready, the RR 2.25 were a woefully delicate tyre for rear use applications and a little spooky on the front at times, hence my hopes.
If only these came with protection layer and the super black chilli compound then in theory they would be perfect!
A bit off topic, but given Conti’s inability to make their tyres to size ( a long running issue) does anyone know what the biggest XC rubber availabe is ?
It seems the RR 2.4 might still the biggest given that WW LT 2.55 is hardly a 2.4.?
Every Conti Mountain King 29’er tire (4 of them) that I tried set up with Stan’s and run tubeless leaked like a sieve for a week, clearly the most porous sidewalls on any tires I’ve run. All of them ran 2/10 to a 1/4 inch under sized in the width dimension.
Running these tires on pavement on the way to the trails is a good way to kill/destroy German rubbered tires in a heartbeat, be it Schwalbes or Conti’s. Just don’t do it, these are high performance based tires, to be ridden on dirt, not pavement, cobblestones or cement. Use them exclusively in their intended environment.
@ professed –
My 2.4 Ardent measures 2.42 at the widest tread block mounted tubeless on Flow rims @ 28psi.
The Conti 2.4 Mountain King mounted in the same manner is 2.32 at the widest.
@Randy
Contrary to your issues, I have run the Race Kings, Mtn Kings, and now X Kings tubeless on the Stan’s set up and never had any porosity issues. They do seem to need a compressor to ‘set’ them after the initial mounting though.
The Mtn Kings are slugs on pavement and I suspect would wear fast, but the Race Kings seems to last forever on the rear on my SS which gets a decent bit of paved time.
grannygear
thx SS
The Ardent do look to be a good burly RR replacement for a rigid front end. I’ll give them a whirl.
The X Kings so far are not getting a good leg up by all the commentators here !
So I have used this tire on the front of my 29HT for the last 7 months, and did around 6000km of every single type of terrain imaginable, from fire roads, soft loamy single track, rocky sungle track, sand, you name it, it’s been on it.
I was really impressed with the low rolling resistance for a tire with a relatively aggresive tread, super impressive grip through corners and absolutely never washing out through any corner on any terrain.
The tread kept itself clean as advertised, and I never had a single puncture on the tread area of the tire.
My gripe with these tires are their sidewalls, the protection sidewall probably works for a setup with tubes. However I run tubeless and the sidewalls don’t offer very good protection in my opinion. I never had any sidewall cuts, but the air never ceased to seep through the sidewalls, and they lose air super easily through the sidewalls when the sidewalls get scuffed against rocks.
Another thing which really irritated me was the fluid on the insude that kept on drying up due to the tires having to be pumped so frequently, this irritated me massively as it left me stranded at the side of the trails a good couple of times.
Obe of the other issues with running this tire as a tubeless is the damage to the sidewalls due to the low pressure that one uses in such an application. The sidewall would easily expose the casing and subsequently leak even more air through the sidewalls.
In short, I have used this tire on the front twice now and won’t be using it again, regardless of the good grip and low rolli g resistance.