By Brian Mullin and Francis Cebedo

For the 2013 product year, they'll have most of the model range in 29er sizes (except gravity tires), and 650B will get the Hans Dampf, Nobby Nic, Racing Ralph, Rapid Rob and Rocket Ron. It's nice to see Schwalbe stepping up to the plate with a big chunk of their tires in the popular new 650B/27.5 size. They are also releasing a new meatier version of the Hans Dampf, named the Super Gravity. All the tires get a new font look, and Schwalbe is changing their information on the tire, so it's easier and more legible to read.

The most exciting news of all is that Schwalbe is embracing the 650b platform and offering many different tires. Often with a new platform, the best tires are always the last to adopt the standard and early users are left compromising with tire designs that over four years old.

Mtbr has been given the opportunity to test the Hans Dampf, Nobby Nic and Rocket Ron in the 650b wheel size. These tires are some of the best available to day and even the most demanding consumer will be pleased with one of these offerings.

First observation is the tires are huge. All three tires mentioned have big volume with wide profiles and a tall casing height. This is significant since the 650b wheel size is only 40% of the way between a 26er and 29er tire. And in the early days of 650b tires, most were low volume and low profile to fit them in 26er fork or frame. Schwalbe has done away with this 'retrofit' requirement and created some of the biggest 650b volume tires around. This will enable better adoption of this wheel size as users are able to fully realize the upper limit of the 650b tire diameter.

Here are the weights of the three 650b tires:

Hans Dampf 650b - 818 grams



Nobby Nic 650b - 717 grams



Rocket Ron 650b

The weights go from 818 grams for the Hans Dampf and a ridiculously light 498 grams for the Rocket Ron (with light casing). All are big volume tires so these weights are quite impressive. The Hands Dampf is the true leader of this crop because 650b has set the bullseye on the All Mountain 5-6" travel bike. And for this category of bike, there are few tires that excel as well as the Hans Dampf. Here is a tire with superb grip and predictability. And to top it off, it rolls pretty darn well as the knobs are closely spaced and the casing is supple.

The Rocket Ron is just a headshaker with it's huge girth but featherweight numbers at 498 grams. The knobs are short and the side wall is very thin. So we dare not set it up tubeless. But we've used it with tubes and we have been shocked so far by its performance. Get the pressures right and it rolls and corners very well.

So there is the exciting line of 650b tires we've tried so far from Schwalbe. We'll let Brian Mullin explain some more of the technology behind these designs.

- francis@mtbr



On each side of the tire is a section of icons and text, which gives detailed information of the tire's construction and compound (Pace Star 3), product line (Evolution), and variants (Tubeless ready and Snakeskin sidewall), etc.



Hans Dampf
The new Hans Dampf Super Gravity was designed for Enduro and Megavalanche competitions, which are quite big in Europe, where the riders tend to use downhill tires for the protection they offer in rugged and punishing terrain, where sharp rocks and heinous conditions can destroy normal tires. The Hans Dampf SG is not only made for DH race conditions, but it will appeal to All Mountain and Freeride usage.



The inner construction of the Super Gravity Hans Dampf is interesting and unique, and combines their casing, sidewall protection, Kevlar bead and stiffening inserts in a synergistic manner for extreme toughness, strength and flexibility, yet still remain moderately lightweight. The red is the normal casing, and the yellow is their Snakeskin sidewall, while the blue is a rubber insert. In a nutshell, they have a pseudo single-ply setup through the tire body and tread, and two-ply up along the sidewalls, along with a rubber insert along the bead, all bound together as a tough tire sandwich, which is light and flexible. Having the Snakeskin wrap all the way around helps with punctures and cuts, in addition to its usual sidewall placement, which now gets doubled. The rubber insert adds a great amount of stiffness and strength to the sidewalls, making the tires downhill like, but without wire bead issues.



The wrap-around Snakeskin offers downhill protection, while the construction method gives a flexible and resilient tread for excellent handling characteristics, in what they call "tough as a downhill tire, light as a freeride tire." The tubeless ready design weighs a respectable 1000 grams, which is about 800 grams less than a full on downhill beast with a tube, which is a great reduction in unsprung weight. It'll be available in their Triple Star Compounds (Pace Star, Trail Star and Vert Star), and will come in 29 x 2.35, 650B x 2.35 and 26 x 2.35 sizes.



The SG floor model at the show felt soft, sticky and pliable, with a good amount of strength where needed. It should be an interesting tire to try out in the real world, since the normal Hans Dampf is a great all around tire.

SG highlights:
  • Folding Tire
  • Tubeless Ready
  • All around SnakeSkin
  • Strong Apex
  • Flexible Tread
  • 1000 gram weight
  • 800 gram weight saving over dh tire
  • Triple Star Compounds (Pace Star, Trail Star and Vert Star)
  • Sizes - 26 x 2.35 (Pace Star, Trail Star and Vert Star), 27 x 2.35 (Vert Star)


Rocket Ron
The lightweight Rocket Ron gets a major facelift this year, in what they like to call 'The Next Generation' version. They have decreased the rolling resistance by 15% due to redesigned center knobs, added stronger side knobs for less squirm, and all the knobs get three micro V-grooves each, for increased grip, control and wet adhesion, while retaining good strength. In addition, the tread pattern has been subtlety tweaked, and the knob height has been decreased. The sidewalls are lightly textured, thicker and have a uniform surface for increased toughness of their 127tip casing, and to assist with tubeless ready mounting. They'll be in available in 29" (2.25 & 2.1), 650B (2.25) and 26" (1.85, 2.1 & 2.25) sizes.



650B
They'll be offering the following 650B sizes:
  • Hans Dampf SG - 27.5 x 2.35
  • Hans Dampf normal - 27.5 x 2.25 & 27 x 2.35
  • Nobby Nic - 27.5 x 2.35 & 27.5 x 2.25 (not snakeskin)
  • Racing Ralph - 27.5 x 2.25
  • Rocket Ron - 27.5 x 2.25 & 27.5 x 2.1
  • Rapid Rob - 27.5 x 2.25
I have been testing the Nobby Nic 650B, and I am quite happy with the tire. It's easy to set up tubeless, has good traction and durability, though it's not the stickiest tire in their line-up it has performed admirably. I can't wait to try the Hans Dampf SG!

29er
As stated earlier, they'll offer the 29" size in almost every model of their MTB range. They did a large study and made some interesting findings about the characteristics of this tire size. They measured rolling resistance with a power meter test using their 29er tires, on different terrain and obstacles, and it showed they rolled 5-6% faster than a 26". They also asked 50 test subjects for their judgement or ride experience in a 26" vs 29" comparison, in relation to wheelspin, somersault, holding a downhill line, safety, ride performance, comfort and optic. In every category, the 29er tire always came out top.