Tag: WTB

This tire is kind of an oddball in WTB’s line up. The other SG2 cut protected tires I’ve tried are good, but this Vulpine is so much nicer riding

Oddly, the Vulpine isn’t as fast a rolling tire on gravel which is loose, chunky, and deep as other tires with similar width. However; once you get out of situations where the terrain is loose and deep, the Vulpine begins to show up as a fast, controllable tire.

What we have here is a new tire from WTB with an old name that has a new mission: Be fast on gravel.

I give the CZR wheels a ‘highly recommended’ score here. While certain singular features on competitor’s products may seem more appealing, the CZR wheels have a complete feature set, are a part of a systemic tubeless range, which not many other choices in wheels can lay claim to, and a wheel set which performs at a very high level in very demanding conditions.

ealant is a lot like tires are when it comes to opinions. What is legend and what is fact gets lost in the passionate takes some folks have concerning which one is ‘best’. So, as far as this opening introduction goes for this new sealant from WTB, many of you may, no doubt, dismiss it out of hand because of your choices. That’s fine. This review is not being done to evangelize anyone. But those who have a more open mind to new ideas should read on.

The WTB CZR wheels not only are light weight, very competitively priced, and super-subtle in looks, but have excellent lateral rigidity which enhances handling and reduces rider fatigue.

The CZR range will include trail bike wheels and these gravel/road wheels which we have in for testing. Focusing then on the gravel side, the WTB CZR wheels will feature an internal rim width of 23mm, reinforced spoke hole beds, and WTB’s “4D” spoke holes which aim each nipple and spoke out to the hub at an angle which removes stress on the spokes which typical straight holes in rims cannot do.

WTB has some really good non-puncture protected gravel/all road tires in their line, but there was no puncture protected version, until now. The SG2 gravel tires seem to be a good addition to the range as long as you understand that the width indicated on the side wall may not match the width of the tire in reality.

This tire isn’t a ‘bad’ tire, but for the MidWest it isn’t a tire that lights a fire underneath me when I ride it. It does the job well enough, sure, but with its slightly harsher ride quality and lack of volume, it isn’t on the same plane as the Resolute or the Byway, both of which we are testing in this series of SG2 reviews.

This was the model I was most concerned about going into this review. Since the standard Resolute is still my #1 gravel tire, I was really hopeful that the SG2 model would at least approximate what I liked about this tire.