Continental tires seemed to be resting on their laurels in the gravity department, having relied on various iterations of the King, Kaiser and Baron line of Mountain bike tires for over 10 years. That was until we spotted a radical looking Continental branded carcass sitting on the rims of Jim Monro’s Atherton DH bike at the Snowshoe DH World Cup. Now the Kaiser, the Baron and the Mud King are superseded by Continental’s new Gravity line, which includes the Xynotal, Kryptotal, Argotal and Hydrotal tread patterns combined with three carcass options and three compound options. There are a total of 40 new Mountain bike tires – which we report on in detail here.
The first year we raced for Continental, we did all of our testing and development in Southern California and nailed the tire. Then we brought it back to the UK and thought: f%*k. – Dan Atherton
Needless to say, both Continental and the Athertons have learned a great deal more about tire development since working together many years ago. These latest Mountain bike tires have been in development for about 3 years with hundreds of iterations listening tested under the wheels of Gee and Dan Atherton and team riders from Continental Atherton, Continental Nukeproof and more recently Pivot at factory races.
Not me.
Continental didn’t originally intend to develop a completely new range; Their primary intention was to provide their DH and EWS teams with a more competitive range of tires to get the job done, but the project snowballed, resulting in no fewer than five new tread patterns covering everything from Covering dry to hard bike park to muddy ruts worthy of the Scottish Enduro Series.
Continental set out on the road to success and invited the international media to the Dyfi Bike Park in Wales, a location where many tests were conducted for Kryptotal’s mixed-condition front and rear tires (described here). Here’s a quick account of how we fared with the DH Casing SuperSoft variant on the wet (but dry) hardpack, shale rock berms and booters at Dan Atherton’s Dyfi Bike Park.
First ride: Continental Kryptotal 29″ x 2.4″ DH Casing SuperSoft
Continental doesn’t talk openly about the shore hardness of their rubber compounds (read why here). Twisting the side knobs on the SuperSoft compound, we can confirm that it is indeed very soft and rebounds very slowly, although perhaps not quite as slowly as Vee Tire Co’s TOP 40 compound.
Following Continental’s presentation of the new Gravity range, I was presented with the Atherton Trail Bike by none other than Dan Brown, the man who is now at the helm of Atherton Bikes (and often referred to as the 4th Atherton). It was fitted with 29″ x 2.4″ Continental Kryptotal front and rear tires, DH casing with SuperSoft compound.
The Kryptotal tires are also available in 29″ x 2.6″ and 27.5″ x 2.4″ and 2.6″. There are also trail and enduro casings to choose from, with faster rolling endurance and soft compounds respectively.
Our DH Casing Kryptotal tires sat on Stan’s Arch CB7 carbon rims with a 26mm internal rim width. Using Park Tool’s DC-1 Digital Caliper, I measured the Kryptotal Front 29″ x 2.4″ tire true to its namesake 2.4″ (with 20 PSI). The tail got a little narrower at around 2.35″ (with 22 PSI).
The Continental Kryptotal (DH Casing) front tire measures 2.4″, true to its namesake size, on a 26mm internal width rim
The Continental Kryptotal rear tire (29″ x 2.4″) measures 2.35″ (yes, the battery in the digital caliper has decided to give up the ghost at this opportune moment) on a 26mm internal width rim
Under the rubber, the slate rock surface of Dyfi Bike Park’s easiest (but still not very easy) red-rated trail, Super Swooper, was a bit soggy. With a new bike, on new terrain, on new tires, on a trail littered with multiple blind crests and loose insides, I rode my first few laps with a lot of respect. Apart from two runs I spent most of the day riding the same line to get used to the features and make sure I could get some full speed runs at the end of the day.
DH lid only here
The track starts at the top of the open hill on wide, fast berms. It then carves through a tunnel as it intersects one of the Back Graded jump lines before plunging into a dense forest with ruts as high as the handlebars. The curves here are tighter, but not too tight, and offer all the support you desire. There are few roots. The track then accelerates back into its final third, with lips of varying incline and length to keep you on your toes. On the third lap of the track I’d say I really enjoyed driving it the way it was built to be driven rather than taking every double in sight.
Continental put all the journalists’ tires on tubeless, with 28 PSI at the rear and 24 PSI at the front. Weighing in at just 60kg in full riding gear, I’ve lowered the pressure to something more appropriate: 22 PSI in the rear and 20 PSI in the front. To be fair, that’s still pretty high for me, but it’s a bike park, so I was on the safe side.
At this pressure, the Kryptotal’s 110 TPI DH casing felt sufficiently supple, and I’m happy to report that I didn’t feel any ringing on the loose, sharp-edged rocks encountered along the way. I was really impressed with the braking performance of the front tyre, especially considering the hard tracks were a bit wet and slimy in places. It felt very controlled and was able to safely slow the bike down instead of skidding and jumping over the wet rocks.
As I started hitting the berms in the lower section of the track with more speed, the tire held its shape with no dramatic events; no squirming, ringing or belching of air. To be honest, that doesn’t surprise me in the least. The carcass construction of the DH Casing is pretty tough as you might imagine. It’s 2-ply, so there are 4 plies of 110 TPI running bead to bead while a further 2 layers of fabric are added in the tread area for added puncture protection. There is also an apex insert on the bead that extends up about a third of the way up the sidewall for added stability.
On these well-ridden, compact tracks, the Kryptotal tires felt pretty quick despite their SuperSoft compound, thanks to the pronounced ramp (especially at the rear) in the mid-profile. At the end of the day, I had no trouble maintaining the speed necessary to outperform the doubles on the super swooper course. The tires always felt sure-footed in hard corners, with no indeterminacy at higher lean angles.
A large majority of the tracks in the Dyfi Bike Park contain large to extra large jumps that I wasn’t remotely interested in riding. However, there is another trail marked in red where the tires are almost always in contact with the ground. twists in the ferns. This one has more rooty goodness as well as some steeper, narrower sections with some awkwardly embedded wet rocks. I had no problem with the tires over wet roots; on the occasions where i didn’t lose weight in time, the tire gripped reliably and i was able to hold the line.
While I enjoyed the front tire’s controlled braking characteristics, I found the rear tire’s to be less than optimal. Yes, it’s the trailing tire, so rear wheel skid is going to be more and more common. However, my experience with the rear tire was that it either rolled or spun and didn’t really do much between those two extremes. The wet stone definitely didn’t help, to be fair.
Emilie Seigenthaler, former World Cup DH racer, getting into the Super Swooper at Dyfi Bike Park on her Pivot Firebird
At this launch event, the number of celebrities far outweighed the number of journalists. Pivot Factory Racing’s Emilie Siegenthaler was one such celebrity, a woman with a 15-year history in the Downhill World Cup. She is now retired from racing but remains at Pivot to mentor aspiring driver Jenna Hastings. I spent a very exciting afternoon staying behind Emilie’s wheel and on the Landrover shuttle back upstairs we discussed our experience with the Kryptotal tires.
She too had a similar experience with the Kryptotal Rear and chose to run the Kryptotal Front tire both rear and front, particularly as she prefers its braking properties.
The listed weight for the 29″ x 2.4″ Kryptotal DH Casing SuperSoft tire is a fairly slim 1,290g. We can’t verify that yet, but some of the Argotal and Kryptotal Enduro and Trail Casing tires were a fair bit heavier than their advertised weight when we weighed them on our Park Tool scale.
Ultimately, I think the Enduro Casing (listed weight of 1125g) would probably be enough for my weight and riding style, so I have the Kryptotal Front Enduro Casing Soft Compound tire on my way to Scotland to test the familiar, softer, slower enduro trails of the Tweed Valley. I’m curious to see how they perform in flat, unassisted corners where the side knobs have to work harder to get grip.
Prices and Availability
Continental’s new Gravity Range tires are available from a retail price of €59.95. The price varies depending on the model and variant.
Continental-Reifen.com