Hours after my post last week about the new Pacenti tires my lovely mail man dropped off a box with two Quasi-Moto tires in it. The tires looked awesome, the tread is exactly what I have been craving for the hard packed south east terrain. At 2.0 they are skinnier than anything I have run of late. The larger wheel should make up for traction lost by width compared to a 2.2 x 26″ tire.

The tires were mounted quickly that night and rolled around on through the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Charlotte has been getting its spring dose of rain for the past week. The trails are anything but “hard packed” right now. The rain has made the trails very loose and saturated. Both of these things are not what the “hard-pack XC / Enduro racing” tire was made for.

This evening I took the 1×1 to my local trail and pounded out about 8 short miles. The tires did impressively well in the loose/wet terrain. Much better than I thought they were going to do. The volume was the only large concern in roots or rocky situations. A couple times the ding of the rim was felt. Some of the trail was wet sandy switchbacks and this is where I thought I would have the biggest issue with the tire not catching. They did what they needed to do and only once did I feel the rear end slide at all through a corner.

Tomorrow’s ride will be at a faster, dryer trail than today. Most of the 6 mile loop is very hard packed with roots thrown around for that extra jarring sensation. The ride should be around 18-24 depending on how many laps are in my legs. Riding fully rigid with a 2.0 tire for 24 rooty miles might put a toll on my hands. I’m going to attempt to lower the air pressure from what I was running today (28psi) and see how low I can go with out pinch flatting.

There are about two more trails after tomorrow that I want to take the tire to. Each of these trails offer completely different terrain and one of them is in the mountains of Asheville. Once the tires see each of these I will have a better idea of its pro’s and con’s.

Thanks again to Kirk for sending a set of proto type’s to me!