ONZA tyres

A couple of months back, several pairs of tyres arrived for evaluation at Blue Shark, the NZ distrubutor for FOX Racing Shox, Commencal, Troy Lee Designs etc. As a part time contractor and product tester for them, I get to try out products new to the market. Tyres are always items I'm wearing out and finding that new do-it-all tyre has become a life long quest.

So, for the past few months I've been testing the IBEX and the CANIS from ONZA of Switzerland. It has been a very dry summer here in Central Otago, great conditions for trying out new rubber. I ran the IBEX first up, just on the rear for a while and then both front and rear to see how the pair worked together. Most of my riding is on dry lose terrain, lots of rocks and tree roots, very little wet conditions, especially in summer.

The IBEX in 2.40, was a tyre that I had high hopes for, but I really had a hard time getting it to work for me. It was very good in a straight line, climbing and braking, but on the corners it really lacked enough bite. A slow rolling tyre, it's casing is very stiff, making air pressure choice critical to get the right combination of lack of drag and good traction. If it was to hard, it would skip and drift all over the place, to soft and it would hook up, but wear you out making it roll. The sweet spot for me was 30psi in the back and 22 up front, running tubeless. The best thing about these tyres are they are very hard to puncture.

The CANIS 2.25 on the other hand is amazing. Very small knobs and a huge casing for a 2.25, this tyre sticks to every thing like glue. I have only run it on the rear, not enough side knobs for me to have up front, but it just hooks up on every type of surface it comes across. I've ridden it in some very wet and slick clay, gnarly tree roots, rocks, lose-over-hard, raced on it in a 6 hr Super D. Thrashed it really. It did puncture on a sharp rock early in it's life and I thought it was all over, but it has sealed up again no problems. One of the best tyre s I've used in years. Pretty fast too and seem to wearing very well. Buy some, really. They rock!