VeloSapiens MTB Reviewing

going the distance

Michelin Cyclocross Tires

 So after my failure in obtaining some Geax cross tires, due to their outrageously high price, I finally chased down some Michelin cross tires, you know, the green ones. Cross tires are weird things. A typical cross course can have mud, dirt, grass, pavement, rocks, lemurs, and who knows what all else. Good tires need to work well in all these situations. Unfortunately, what works in some situations might suck in another. Michelin attacks this problem by producing two different tires, the CX Sprint and the CX Mud. A more accurate nomenclature might be the CX More Fast and the CX More Grip, though both tires do both things pretty well.
Some neo-luddite purist fanatics out there might suggest that tubulars are the way to go for cross. I would suggest that such people are dorks. I already have to travel to 25-30 cross races each season, pay zillions of entry fees, gas, lunch etc... I'll be dipped in dog-doo if i'm gonna invest in yet another expensive set of wheels and tires that can only be used to race. Cross was originally about keeping fit, so everything on my cross bike does double duty. Traditionally I've been a sort of bag lady about cross equipment, scavenging bits and pieces of old bikes, out of the junk drawer at the local shop, and out of forgotten corners of my shed. The season I really kicked ass ('96-state champ, surf city winner, 8th at nationals), I used Acera-x hubs (free from busted wheels at the shop), cheezo no-name hybrid tires ($3 wholesale when I worked at the shop), a  Suntour XC comp crank ($10 on closeout after Suntour folded), and brakes, derailleurs, pedals and stuff scrounged off of my road bike or my old mtb. The only think I paid real money for was the frame.
Fortunately, my association with BlackMarket Racing has provided some excellent equipment from Chris King, White Industries, Time, Bontrager and Salsa that I could not have afforded otherwise, but it's all perfectly useful for commuting and backroad exploring. And I still put some high-zoot stuff on my new bike, like an STX front derailleur and my same old crusty LX cantilevers. If someone wants to kick down a pair of sew-up wheels and tires, I'll be perfectly happy to try 'em, but since I can't realistically use them for day-to-day riding, I won't be spending my own money on them.
 

Anyway

I bought a pair of the "sprint" version and a pair of the "mud" version. The sprints are essentially the same tread as the mtb sprint, which has knobs on the side and a rough file tread in the middle. The muds have lotsa small, stiff knobs all over, to penetrate and provide traction (huhuh Beavis, You said "small, stiff knobs penetrate").
The tires say 700 x 30c on the side, but they're the widest 30mm tires I've ever seen in my life, which suits me just fine. My highly calibrated finger calipers find them to be about the same width as my Ritchey Speedmax 700 x38's. I am, in general, partial to chubby tires for their excellence in soaking up bumpy things. Both models are the same pale green made famous by their mtb tires. I think the green color looks super sweet on my metallic gold Rock Lobster, but fashion-impaired traditionalists may wish there were black ones. The problem with black tires is that they're not instantly identifiable as Michelins from 50 meters.
 

Sprints

I used the smoothies in several CX races, including the San Jose Super Cup (in which I got completely shelled). I thought they felt faster than my speedmaxes, but I have the cheesy wire-bead, gumwall casing speedmaxes, whereas the Michelins are a kevlar-bead, skinwall, nice, light, expensive racing tire. I was somewhat surprised by the amount of traction provided by these pups, but I suppose I shouldn't have been. Every review of the mtb sprints I've read has suggested that get shockingly good grip in everything except slippery mud. I had the best results running them at around 40-50 psi in the soft conditions we had around here in December. The only real problem I had was that I'm so dang uncoordinated that I slammed the rear wheel into a curb about 5 mins before the start of the Surf City finals and trashed my rim (but no pinch flat), so I had to switch to my heavy, unwieldy, slow-ass mtb to race.
 

Muds

Not necessarily just for mud, but also for loose terrain where a smoother tire might slide unexpectedly (like at this year's state/district champs in Reno). They seemed to clear mud plenty well on the days I used them, but it was pretty wet mud at the Watsonville fairgrounds, so that's no big surprise. They stuck to the ground awfully well in the loose, gravelly corners at districts, allowing me to corner faster than MTB rider Paul Gossi. Unfortunately, Paul is just plain fitter than me, so he gapped me on the hills and beat me by 9 seconds anyway.

I was surprised (and impressed) by how well these knobbly tires rolled. On the pavement sections at districts, they felt flat out fast. My seat-of-the-pants guesstimation is that they roll better than even my 30mm speedmaxes, which is pretty remarkable for a full-knobby tire.

I've raced both tires several times, and they seem to hold up fine for racing. I haven't used them for anything but racing, because at $30 or so each, I can't afford it. That's way cheaper than sew-ups and tubular rims, but it's still enough that I don't feel the need to waste it. Besides, I've got tons of leftover cross tires that I can use for commuting, fire-road exploring and other activities where racing performance is unnecessary. After a season or so of racing, I'll add them to stack of tires I save for grinding out training miles on the remote roads and logging trails of West Sonoma county. If you race lots of cross, it's worth it to buy some michelins, and also buy some cheesy $10 hybrid tires for plain old gettin' around. If you don't race lotsa cross, heck, you might as well just stick with the cheapies, or else start racing more.

Verdict: These are the tires I'll be racing on next year. I think they rule.
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