Review: Continental TrailAttack II

When I bought my bike, it had some Metzeler Tourances on them. Not the NXT version, but the older one.
It showed some cracks, but shouldn’t be a problem because it’s a tubed tire (because of spoked wheels).

But after slipping and sliding around in the rain, I knew it was time to replace them to improve some handling and get a little more comfort out of them.

Motives:
From what I know, the Continental TrailAttacks were the best for me, because they use a technology called “TractionSkin”.

What it means is that the tire has a very short run-in time, which was handy because I don’t like the feel of riding with slippery tires.

This diagram shows the difference between the Conti TKC80, TKC70 and TA2.

I wanted something that has a lot of handling in wet and dry weather, and is also durable.
The Continental TrailAttack II is the most street oriented tire in this diagram, but it also has relativly good grip on gravel.

They were a noticably better tire than the old Metzelers I had.
I’ve also looked at the TKC70 and the TKC80, but the TKC80 was too much of an offroad oriented tire to run everyday on the pavement.
My next tires’ll be the TKC70’s. They have a bit more of an agressive thread and should do better offroad.

Experience:
My experience with the tires is really good. I’ve done some kind of offroading on them (riding around on roadworks), and they handled very well.
When I first took them for a ride, it felt strange to have rounded tires (well yeah, the other ones were squared off).

It took some time to get used to the new grippy tires, but now I can take some twisties without the rear end breaking loose.

Price:
I paid about €160,20 for the set without mounting, which is not that expensive for some quality tires. Mounting costed about 20€ when going to the local tire shop. They were more than happy to mount them for me 🙂

Mileage:
I’ve mounted the tires when I had 37121km on my odometer, and now I’ve got 43330km’s on it. So I’ve only ridden it for 6209km’s.
The tires are still rounded, but I still have some chickenstrips on them.
The thread is still deep so they can hold out for a very long time, wear is about 10-15% at the moment.

Riding style:
I’m mostly riding in a straight line, because it’s a commute, but in the weekends I try to get some more experience in riding twisties, which helped a little bit.
In the city it’s mostly hard on the throttle and hard on the brakes.
Normally the tires are hot when I’m back home and they stick like glue, so I’m happy with them.

Other tires I’d take a look at:
I have some tires that I still want to try out to look at their performance.
These are the following:
– Continental TKC70, because they are better offroad than the TA2.
– Heidenau K60 Scout, because they look so cool and they also have great reviews.
– Pirelli Scorpion Trail (I and II), just to try them out if they are as good as the TA2.

Verdict:
I like the TA2’s, they are very grippy in hot and cold weather, but it’s sketchy to ride on white lines when accellerating. They loose grip easily when you are on a wet slippery surface. It is also a bit frightening when you loose grip on dry, but dusty asphalt.
But all in all, it’s a great tire that doesn’t require a long break-in period.