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The gravel road going scene has been growing by leaps and bounds for several years, but equipment for such pursuits has been slow to come, until now, that is. A great example of this is in the tubeless tire category, which has exploded compared to the past, with several entries for the 2016 season. One of those is the new Maxxis Rambler 40mm tires which have puncture protection and a tubeless ready construction.
Rambler tires have a tubeless ready bead, an “EXO” puncture protection on the sidewalls, and have a dual compound tread with a 120TPI casing. Of course, the beads are folding, and the weight of our two samples is an incredible 370/380 grams. The retail price is about $55.00-$60.00 each and they should be available very soon after the date of this posting.
The plan for us is to get these tires mounted up, then ridden a bit, before we come back with a “Getting Rolling” post where we will give you our first impressions on these new tubeless ready options for gravel road riders/racers everywhere.
Note: Maxxis sent over the Rambler 40mm tires to RidingGravel.com at no charge for test/review. We will always strive to give you our honest thoughts and opinions throughout.
Discuss and share your questions or thoughts about gravel bikes, gear, events and anything else on the Riding Gravel Forum.
Those look good. The Maxxis site says the beads are carbon which might be a problem for some. The American Classic site says about their tubeless rims: “No tubeless tires with carbon fiber beads.”
I can already verify that these do not work very well on the Am Classic rims we have on hand. The bead does not sit up on the bead seat very well. Leaves the tire “lumpy” and out of round, prone to burping.
I look forward to the insight on these… I just built up a T6 Standard Rando, which came highly praised by you, and mounted some Cazaderos, but I must admit, I’m a long time Maxxis fan, and know their tires tend to work well with Stans hoops.
Jesse, Maxxis has already advised me that this tire wasn’t designed to mount on a Stan’s rim. Obviously, the bead is designed differently than a folding bead tire’s would be, and typically the folding bead tires are the ones you want to mount on your Stan’s rims, as that is what they are meant for.
These tires are designed to a tighter tolerance, so you might find, as I did already, the a Stan’s rim is a bit too tight a fit for these new tires.
Interesting, it seems people have been running the “TR” Maxxis mountain tires on Stans hoops with great luck for the most part. I was under the impression that the UST bead profile was the one to steer clear of on Stans, for obvious reason. I wasn’t aware that Maxxis had changed the bead profile of the “Tubeless Ready” tires but I imagine that even just a few millimeters of diameter difference could be enough to throw it all off, as you’ve encountered!
Thanks for the insight!!!
I would imagine that Maxxis is doing something different with regard to bead diameter from what they are doing with mountain bike TR tires here with the Rambler. You will note that on the Maxxis website, they list the bead as being carbon- http://www.maxxis.com/catalog/tire-512-rambler#sizes
That’s likely the same bead type and dimension they use for their road tubeless- http://www.maxxis.com/catalog/tire-245-118-padrone
With tolerances being much tighter on the road side of tubeless offerings, it would not come as a surprise to me that the dimensions here are, in fact, much closer to road UST, if not the same. You will note that the video on the Padrone page shows a Shimano Dura-Ace wheel being used which is a UST dimension rim.