BONTY XR3/4
THE Bontrager XR3 and XR4 tyres are a trail tyre designed to cover regular use and allmountain riding.
I placed the 780g XR4 on the front and the 650g XR3 on the rear: this was purely personal preference and neither tyre are front or rear specific.
I mounted the tubeless ready (TLR) tyres on some Stans Flow EX rims without any problems. I tested these tyres over hard-packed sand, sandstone, and sandstone with a light sprinkling of sand over the top.
With the XR4 up front, the pattern is aggressive but not over the top. There are plenty of knobs on this tyre and they have a good amount of space between them for mud clearance. This also means there was no open dead-spot which can lead to washouts.
Even though the XR3 looked more aggressive than the XR4, I used this on the rear as it looked liked it would accelerate very well due to the tread pattern. And that’s what it did, even at 25psi, it felt super light and rolled well.
Once pumped up the width of the tyres was impressive: these are not XC racefriendly. Cornering on both these tyres, was no massive transition from the middle to side knobs. This gave me that extra confidence especially in off-camber sections of trail.
Using a soft compound 62a/60a there is a whole world of grip. When it came to braking, the large footprint came into its own here, especially using the softer compound.