New Favorite Tire - Schwalbe Hurricane

[Candyapplegreen]

Schwalbe has come out with a new tire for 2020, the Hurricane. I have been riding on a pair for two weeks now. In the main, middle tread, the tire has ridges of micro knobs, similar to those found on skinny gravel tires, with a center strip of fine ridges. There are aggressive, bulky knobs at the edges. It offers 5.5 protection rating with a rating of 4 across the board for rolling, road grip and off road grip.

I have been riding mostly on Super Moto Xs. My riding is mostly on paved rural roads but I do like to explore logging and fire roads. We have several packed gravel trails as well. Finding a tire with low rolling resistance, good traction wet and dry and good grip off pavement has been a tall order.

This tire is whisper quiet on paved surfaces and rolls very easily. It is a very fast tire, almost as fast as Marathon Supremes. The traction on road and trail is very good, verging on excellent. It is sure footed on wet pavement as well. The protection level is only 1/2 a mark lower than Super Moto X tires. The rolling resistance is the same as is the road grip but they are 1/2 mark better on off road grip. To me they feel like they are actual better off road by a greater margin and they are noticeably quieter.

They are quite affordable at $41 usd for the 27.5 x 2.4 size Double Deffense Race Guard with reflective side wall stripe.

For me the new Hurricane fits with my riding better than any tire I have ridden on. This tire comes across as the best all purpose tire I have ridden to date.


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Thanks, @Alaskan. This review and subsequent discussion gave me the confidence to order a Hurricane (29x2.4) for the front of my old rigid steel 29er frame with a TSDZ2 motor. I am very happy with the result. I had been running Big Apples (28x2.35 front and rear) for several hundred miles and love this combination on pavement or hard pack. However, just about every one of my rides includes some stretch of unpaved surface, be it hard pack, gravel or loose dirt. As I said, the BA, essentially a slick, managed the hard pack well but as a front tire had no lateral bite in gravel or loose dirt, especially when transitioning at speed from pavement. I am fine with the BA on the back end both in terms of traction and lateral control but the squirrelly front end was causing me to slow down considerably in those loose unpaved conditions. Conversely, the Hurricane up front keeps the bike pointed in the right direction; no more slewing as with the BA. The Hurricane feels just as planted and fast on pavement as the BA and hasn't slowed me at all on curves. I anticipated there being a noticeable transition from the center tread pattern to the outer knobs in cornering but nothing as such has manifested itself. I will wear out the BAs as rear tires (they won't last long with a combined 120 kgs of bike and rider) and then my equip my Frankenbike with Hurricanes on both ends.

 

[penserv]

I gave up on the Hurricanes. Schwalbe makes the 29" version much different than the 27.5" version for some strange reason. The 27.5 is tubeless ready and the 29" version is tubed only. I went with Schwalbe Thunder Burts, just a slightly more aggressive version of the Hurricane tire. The front one I taped with Gorilla Tape and it went on the rim on the first try. The rear tire, I tried 3 or 4 combinations of Gorilla tape with no success. Air leaking through the spokeholes all over the place. I even got out my Dremel tool and smoothed out the spokeholes on the rim. I had to inflate the tire with a tube and leave it for a couple of days. Finally I tried one layer of Kapton tape and Bingo! that worked. Now the tires might lose 1 or 2 psi in a week. I'm using 4 oz of Stan's sealant in each tire and sometime this month I should add another oz to each tire. The tubeless setup seems to make my heavy bike more nimble. Last year, with tubes and tannus armor inserts, I rode at Level 4 (out of 9) PAS and Level 5 for uphill or headwinds. Now, tubeless, I'm at Level 3 and 4. Anyone need a deal on 29" Hurricanes?