First Look: Pirelli's New Scorpion Race DH & Enduro Tires
You may have noticed the Canyon CLLCTV Pirelli World Cup team (the other vowel-phobic Canyon DH team) racing some unreleased tires last season. Along with team mentor Fabien Barel, they have been developing a complete range of tires designed specifically for racing. Now, Pirelli is finally ready to unveil them.
The new line of tires is divided into the Scorpion Race DH and the Scorpion Race Enduro. The difference is the casing construction and weight.
Pirelli's M (mixed-conditions) tire is designed to be versatile and predictable. Photo Credit: Mountain Bike Connection Summer - Mirror Media.
The T (traction) tread pattern is more spaced out for looser conditions. The central knob in the cluster of three can be removed for better mud-shedding and directional stability. Photo Credit: Mountain Bike Connection Summer - Mirror Media.
The Mud pattern (center) is specific for the sloppiest conditions, with well-spaced knobs and a 2.4" width to avoid catching the sides of mud ruts. On the left is the S (soft) conditions tire, which is 2.5" wide and more well-rounded, but still mud-biased. Photo Credit: Mountain Bike Connection Summer - Mirror Media.
There are four tread patterns: M (mixed), T (traction), S (soft) and Mud. The Mud pattern is only available in the DH casing, while the other three are available in Enduro or DH versions.
One of the best metrics to characterise a tyre's intended use is the land-to-sea ratio - the area of the tyre surface that's made up of the tread compared to the rest of the tyre. This number goes from 0.21 for the M to 0.11 for the Mud pattern.
The DH tires are claimed to weigh around 1,450 g in 29x2.5" size, while the enduro line is said to weigh around 1,260 g, depending on the tread pattern. Both are a dual-ply construction with a rubber sidewall insert to prevent pinch flats. The difference is in the nylon threads used to hold the carcass together: the DH casing has thicker threads (60 threads per inch) while the Enduro casing uses finer ones (120 threads per inch). This means the Enduro tire is lighter, faster rolling and suppler over bumps, but the DH tire is more puncture resistant and more supportive in the turns.
For now, they're only available in a 2.5" width, except for the Mud pattern, which is 2.4" only. All are designed to work best with 30 mm rims. According to Fabien, the number of World Cup racers still using 25 mm rims is diminishing and the reason is primarily due to new tires not being well-designed for narrower rims. Pirelli say that when starting from a blank sheet of paper, it makes sense to design tires specifically around 30 mm rims as they're the most popular and they offer more stability to the tire. Pirelli claim they measure up true-to-size at 2.50" (63.5 mm) on a 30 mm rim at 22 psi. That would make them a little bigger than the equivalent real-world size from some other brands, and while I haven't had a chance to get a set of callipers on them, they certainly look plump in the flesh.
The Race DH and Race Enduro tires all share one compound, which Pirelli call SmartEVO DH. They say the rubber compounds in their MTB tires have been developed with help from the brand's motorsports experience. In contrast to the SmartGRIP compound already seen on Pirelli's MTB tires, the new rubber is designed to offer uncompromising race day performance. This doesn't just mean the most grip possible, though, as Pirelli say they prioritised predictability over ultimate stickiness.
The knobs feature a soft (42A durometer) rubber on the outside to help them stick to the trail, with a harder base compound under the surface to prevent the knob from folding under the extreme cornering loads seen in top-level racing and to allow it to absorb impacts effectively. When I talked to Pirelli's engineers, it sounds like the layer of softer compound is relatively thin (to better resist folding), which means the tires will wear down to the base compound relatively quickly. This is the compromise Pirelli made in order to combine stickiness with stability. If you want a tire to last all season in the bike park, look elsewhere.
I got a chance to ride the tires briefly at Bike Connection, a press event in Italy, but it's too soon to say how they compare to their rivals. I'll let you know once I've put some miles on them at home. Photo credit: Mountain Bike Connection Summer - Rupert Fowler
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But realistically, I just buy most of the tyres to try for myself
As for durometers, I recall Schwalbe used to do that and very often it were different compounds in one single tire. A harder compound in the middle and softer for the side knobs. And sometimes even different compounds in a single knob (so a hard core for stability covered in a softer compound for grip). Even if they give you all the numbers, I can imagine it may still be hard to make comparisons.
Also different compounds with the same shore hardness can have dramatically different hardness at other temperatures.
@saladdodger: thank you for illustrating that while some of us hunger for engineer/inventor-level detail, others do not need this. But having it available would be awesome.
I personally would rather have objective data than subjective. I don’t trust online rider reviews as most of them are from potentially biased sources, or use unhelpful superlatives. I really like what @astonmtb is doing. What happened to MTBR? Is everyone who actually contributed to real reviews then just an ambassador these days?
In the end even if more numbers and objective facts could be available (great!) I still want reviews that cover subjective impressions. I can't imagine a way to quantify, say, wrist pain caused by a tire (looking at you Wild Enduro Front) or the DHF drift.
“Can I get a Scorpion for my bike please?”
“Why yes sir here you go”
“There is no way a Scorpion Rally STR will fit my mtb!!!”
“Sorry. Im confused”
Grazie!
BTW, I'm fond of Schwalbe's naming convention: Magic Mary, Big Betty et al.
Disagree on the Soft though. At least for a rear tyre: I run the Krypto R Soft Enduro on the rear,
very good grip and surprisingly little wear so far.
They've gotten a good deal more expensive, don't offer DH casing tires in anything but MaxxGrip. MaxxGrip tires also have a pretty horrendous wear rate as a rear tire, and tend to chunk off entire knobs once they're beyond a certain point. On top of all of that, where I live people seem to be shredding DD and DH casings from them at a surprising rate.
All this to say. They are good, and are the standard for a reason, but they're far from perfect, and a little competition can't hurt!
SCORPION!
Or will you black out from hitting the deck?
Which means the casing weights are about what the Schwalbe Super Gravity tires weigh.
And now I'm just left wondering which casing is more supportive, and resistant to damage (ie, are the continental DH tires as robust as the enduro casings from Pirelli and Schwalbe... or did Continental do some magic here).
Not really...it was advertised as such on their website. When i picked up, they noticed price difference and i even offer to pay regular sale price which was $50 and said our bad..you can keep at that price.