I am hearing mostly good feedback about trials tires on dirt and rocks/roots. I know that in deep, soupy mud trials knobs can pack up with mud and lose their bite. Has anyone used the rear trials tire in sand and whoops or loose sugar sand? Looking for experiences in both traction and control (a soft squirmy tire at 7psi is a concern in fast sand whoops). Any specific details (tire brand, tire pressure, 2 stroke / 4stroke riding style) would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. DS

Dan,

I was down the pinelands in November on a xt350 4 banger with a Pirelli rear trials tire with 12 psi front being a knobby and with the bikes soft power delivery I never noticed a loss of traction or problems with any kind of terrain..

It wheelied and stopped as good as anything else I had on it..

I'm sure railing a 2stk would be different or a throttle aggressive 450 4 stk may slide some

I saw ML with a trials tire I believe in the Green Briar National and he won. lol

I can tell you that that not one guy running a trials tire at Boxton Bridge Enduro in SC finished the race. It was all sand and very wet. They were all stuck and had no hopes of getting out of deep ruts. There were a lot of them out there and I have no idea why it was obiviously not the hot set up.

Thank you. I watched 2 of the Broxton video clips closely and wondered if I was missing something. There were at least 2 bikes that I took note of that were running trials tires. I had a maxxis SI tire packing with mud at the back of the DER II HS course, and thought a trials tire would be completely worthless in swampy conditions like Broxton. The video clips looked like something reminiscent of the blackwater 100 where simply finishing was a major achievement. For something that wet and swampy, would a sand knobby or something that looks like a paddle help? Pirelli MXS and Michelin Sand 4 look like paddles with knob cuts.

Nothing would really help much in those conditions but a bad tire choice "trials tire" could make matters worse. Any good sand/soft terrain tire will work good. Something like the Pirelli MT44 may have helped. In that soft swamp sand once you start to sink it only gets worse when you gas it so buy a light bike cuz the only way out is to drag you bike out of rut to higher ground. I bet the trial tires you saw in the broxton clip were the ones sitting motionless stuck hopelessly.