Rubbish on hard or dry surfaces, Quite damaging to trail surfaces
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
For those of you that hadn't noticed, it rains in the UK. The knock on effect for mountain bikers is that it gets rather muddy and, quite frankly, the tyres you've been running for the last five years which have nearly gone bald just won't cut it in really muddy conditions. This is where mud tyres come in, one of the classic mud tyres being the Panaracer Spike. If you get to see one of these beasts in the flesh, it will become instantly apparent why they chose to call it the Spike. The cross section of the tyre consists of four large rubber spikes about 8mm in length repeated around the circumference of the tyre. The resulting tread pattern looks terrifying and puts tractors to shame. Equally terrifying is the stern warning on the tyre "Not for road use!", but more about that later.
The Spike that I fitted to my bike had a Kevlar bead, the bead being the part of the tyre that holds it onto the rim. Personally, I'm a fan of steel beads which make the tyre easier to put on, but don't allow it to fold for storage. Kevlar beads allow you to fold the tyre into a drawer, but the flip side of the coin is that the tyre will attempt to fold itself back up whilst you're fitting it to the bike. Once you've managed to get the tyre on, step back and admire how weird your bike looks with that monster stuck on it.
Now we come onto the first main problem with the tyre, that "Not for road use!" warning. The problem is one of getting off-road. Very few people have got the luxury(?) of riding out of their house and straight into muddy singletrack. There's generally at least some tarmac there somewhere. Riding with a Spike on tarmac is really not a pleasant experience. Braking feels sketchy and turning corners is a death defying stunt. When you're on tarmac, the centre two spikes grip the road. As you corner, these two spikes bend until they can bend no more and spring back, throwing you about a foot sideways. Give me mud. Now.
OK, we've got mud. I'm less scared now, mainly because I've got something soft and squishy to break my fall. Fortunately with mud the tyres start behaving themselves. This is, after all, what they were designed to do. On muddy climbs the tyres allow you to leave others behind as they pathetically wheelspin, give up, and carry the bike. On muddy downhills they give you the ability to go around corners without making friends with the nearest tree. The exceptional grippiness also allows you a bit more braking power for when you've really lost your bottle and common sense has cut in. The main problem here seems to be what happens if you hit a tree root or rock. The wheel in question seems to get rather upset about this and sends you off in whatever direction it seems to like, just like cornering on a tarmac surface.
Whilst the tyres really do improve the bike's handling in muddy conditions, there is one thing that any responsible rider should consider about the Spike, namely it's impact on the trail surface. The Spike seems to work by cutting through whatever is on top to get a bit of grip. In doing this, it does lots of damage to the surface. Using aggressive tyres like this really contributes to trail erosion. Frankly, unless you're competing and you really need the extra grip in muddy conditions, I would leave these at home and stick with a set of less aggressive tyres. I no longer use the Spike for this very reason.
Although the tyre does give exceptional grip in mud, the poor performance on hard surfaces and the damage it does to the trail mean that I'm going to have to mark it down to a 2 star.
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