I finally got a chance to get the new 29er Ardents from Maxxis mounted the night before I am supposed to be riding the north Georgia mountains.  First, these tires go on Stans Flow rims extremely easy.  There was no need for tire levers at all.  I didn’t have a compressor handy, so right now they are mounted up with light weight 26er tubes.

Each tire is set at 40 lbs. of air pressure for the measurements.  40 lbs is my “set over night” pressure to make sure the tires get into the rim and stretch properly.  After the ride, I am going to remove the tubes and run them tubeless on the Stans rims.

Front Tire @ 40 lbs. on Stans Flow Rim

• Casing Width – 2.172 in.
• Tread Width – 2.217 in.

Rear Tire @ 40 lbs. on Stans Flow Rim

• Casing Width – 2.099 in.
• Tread Width – 2.152 in.

For the ride, the tires are going to be lowered in the 28 lbs range.  My initial thoughts are that these are going to be great all around tires for 29er’s.  Currently, most of the 29er offerings are low tread designs, so it is great to see Maxxis come to the market with a more trail oriented tire.  These tires are fairly light for their size.  I did not have a digital scale handy, but the other prototypes are coming in around 733g.  I already know from the DH 2.6 and 2.4 that I tested that these will rail the corners.  It is going to be interesting to see how the bigger wheels change the way the tread reacts.

The test bike is the Moots Mooto-X that I reviewed earlier this year.  Ideally, I would like to use a Turner Sultan to test these tires to the extreme limit, but I am really able to push the Moots.  I have even taken this bike through free-ride parks, so it should fit the bill perfectly in the mountains.

Note:  It is difficult to get an accurate measurement on tread width with calipers.  They always want to push the tread in as you measure, so those might be a couple hundredths off.

Coming soon…

• Ardent 2.6/2.4 DH Casing Final Review (Pisgah Tested)
• Ardent 29×2.25 Final Review (North Georgia Tested)