Singletrack

BEST WINTER TYRE
e*thirteen
TRSr
Price:
From:
£59.95 each
Silverfish, silverfish-uk.com
Joining e*thirteen’s ever-expanding product line-up last
year, the e*thirteen TRSr is intended to slot in between
lightweight cross-country tyres and super-burly downhill
tyres – in the words of Goldilocks, not too hot and not too
cold, but juuuust right. Or to put it another way, a regular
trail tyre for everyday use. That might be doing these tyres
a slight disservice though, as they’ve performed brilliantly
throughout the test and are more than ‘just right’. Available
in 27.5in and 29in options, with folding bead, reinforced
sidewalls, reinforced pinch flat zones and enduro casing, they
tip the scales at 918g (27.5in, 900g quoted) and are designed
to pop up tubeless with just a track pump and a scoop of
sealant. True to their word they went up without needing a
compressor on every rim we tried, every time. Available in
two compounds (Race or Plus), we’ve been riding the softer,
grippier, Race compound which is made up of 70a rubber at
the base, 42a in the centre, and a 40a for the side knobs.
Given how soft the tyres feel under the thumbnail,
they rolled along really well, and were only a bit draggy on
long road sections. Once up to speed and onto the fun stuff
though, that drag wasn’t noticeable, and the payoff was that
they provided ample grip for climbing, especially when faced
with things like slanted wet rock or rooty madness sections.
If outright climbing traction isn’t required, you might want
to consider either the harder compound TRS+, or a modern
semi-slick such as the Maxxis Minion SS.
The sidewalls felt really supportive and I often found
myself running less pressure than I thought – sometimes as
low as 22/24 psi front/rear, with very little tyre body roll,
while on rockier Lakeland descents we upped the pressures
slightly. Even if you go fast enough to drift, the traction is
super-reliable except on very loose marbley surfaces, where we
have yet to find a tyre that works perfectly.
With a carefully shaped and siped tread pattern
reminiscent of a Magic Mary, they offer great grip in mud and
slop too, with lots of clearance, and the rubber was soft and
edgy enough to keep things under control for braking when
the going got loose.
On the first off-road descent of the first ride on the tyre,
we managed to put a hole in the rear that needed two tubeless
plugs to seal. However, after that, it has been puncture and
trouble free for over a year, even hitting long rocky Lakeland
descents where we could feel the tyres bottoming out and
carbon rims impacting on the ground below.
As such, the pair of tyres on test has done a hard week of
descending in the Pyrenees, many rides around Calderdale,
trips to Peebles, and finally they’ve ended up here in the Lakes.
They’ve not been ridden every day as they’ve been on a
‘weekends and trips’ bike, but we reckon they’ve done a good
few hundred miles. While the rear is worn, they are looking
surprisingly good for their age, and for the amount of riding
time we’ve put into them in relation to the level of grip they
return, the wear has been excellent and as they’ve worn the
performance hasn’t fallen away as dramatically as it has with
other tyres on test.
Overall
There is no denying that at £59.95, they’re at the upper-mid
end of the price spectrum, but we’ve really got on well with
these tyres, If you think of them as track day tyres for your
sports car, it’s well worth getting a pair for racing and Alps
trips and maybe use something else for day-to-day riding.
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