I've seen this brand come up a few times and have read very mixed reviews on the internet. As a result, I took the plunge and also bought my 2 tires and tubes for somewhere around $100. Here is an update from late 2017.
I spent this week replacing both front and rear tires. I went from Dunlop MX52 intermediate tires to Artrax MX Pro intermediate tires. The first thing I noticed is that these tires are incredibly difficult to install. Pushing them on by hand is an absolute no-go (even after heating); the side-wall and bead are incredibly too rigid to easily pop on the rim. The trick here was to go 1 bead at a time and spoon it on entirely from the get-go. Namely, get the tube stem started and make sure the bead is in the rim at that point which basically put you in a position where that section of tire is in the rim and the rest of it is rest on top of the rim. From here, you'll actually have to spoon on the lower bead all the way around the tire. The important thing is to make sure you're only trying to spoon in one bead at a time. Once the lower bead is on the rim, you can shift things around, fix your rim lock, etc. and then finally start tucking in the top bead to finish up. Ultimately, I agree with what the rest of the internet has claimed about these tires: really tough to get on.
However, once the tire was on the rim, I found seating it to be pretty easy. For the rear tire I only had to inflate, deflate, and inflate again. Everything seemed to seat around 40 psi. The front tire was a bit more difficult but not bad. I inflated/deflated probably about 3 times but couldn't get a section to seat. I just deflated, popped the bead off the rim and tried again. An inflate/deflate/inflate cycle to about 50 psi seated this tire nicely. Overall, I've read some bad things about seating these tires too, but I didn't seem to have many problems here.
The other thing I've noticed now that they're on the bike is that they're pretty narrow tires. I'm running a 250f right now and am questioning whether or not I should've gone with the 110 tire instead of the 100 in the rear. I guess we'll see. Assuming I don't rain out tomorrow, I'll probably take it out to the track to test them out (and report back if I notice any huge traction differences).
So that's it. Unless these things run great and/or last forever, I am probably not going to be buying a set of Artrax tires in the near future. They were a lot more work to put on than any other tire I've used and I'm not sure it's worth the difference in price xD. I'm also concerned being that they are so stiff that this may cause some traction issues. Again, hopefully I'll have a chance to check that out tomorrow.
One quick question though. As I mentioned, I decided to run their Artrax Heavy Duty tube. Now, I haven't pinched any tubes in the past but given that this tire is so rigid I couldn't exactly get my fingers under there to check. Any tell-tale signs that I would be pinching a tube? I took it for a quick spin around the neighborhood yesterday and jumped on it a few times-- everything seems to have held so far. I use 8.5in tire spoons and don't ever really pull them much further than 90 degrees to get the bead onto the rim. This combined with the fact that I always install the tire with the tube slightly inflated suggests to me that I should probably be ok, but I wanted to check with you guys if there was an obvious way to notice this before I take off a jump and land on my rim instead of tire
--RageD
I spent this week replacing both front and rear tires. I went from Dunlop MX52 intermediate tires to Artrax MX Pro intermediate tires. The first thing I noticed is that these tires are incredibly difficult to install. Pushing them on by hand is an absolute no-go (even after heating); the side-wall and bead are incredibly too rigid to easily pop on the rim. The trick here was to go 1 bead at a time and spoon it on entirely from the get-go. Namely, get the tube stem started and make sure the bead is in the rim at that point which basically put you in a position where that section of tire is in the rim and the rest of it is rest on top of the rim. From here, you'll actually have to spoon on the lower bead all the way around the tire. The important thing is to make sure you're only trying to spoon in one bead at a time. Once the lower bead is on the rim, you can shift things around, fix your rim lock, etc. and then finally start tucking in the top bead to finish up. Ultimately, I agree with what the rest of the internet has claimed about these tires: really tough to get on.
However, once the tire was on the rim, I found seating it to be pretty easy. For the rear tire I only had to inflate, deflate, and inflate again. Everything seemed to seat around 40 psi. The front tire was a bit more difficult but not bad. I inflated/deflated probably about 3 times but couldn't get a section to seat. I just deflated, popped the bead off the rim and tried again. An inflate/deflate/inflate cycle to about 50 psi seated this tire nicely. Overall, I've read some bad things about seating these tires too, but I didn't seem to have many problems here.
The other thing I've noticed now that they're on the bike is that they're pretty narrow tires. I'm running a 250f right now and am questioning whether or not I should've gone with the 110 tire instead of the 100 in the rear. I guess we'll see. Assuming I don't rain out tomorrow, I'll probably take it out to the track to test them out (and report back if I notice any huge traction differences).
So that's it. Unless these things run great and/or last forever, I am probably not going to be buying a set of Artrax tires in the near future. They were a lot more work to put on than any other tire I've used and I'm not sure it's worth the difference in price xD. I'm also concerned being that they are so stiff that this may cause some traction issues. Again, hopefully I'll have a chance to check that out tomorrow.
One quick question though. As I mentioned, I decided to run their Artrax Heavy Duty tube. Now, I haven't pinched any tubes in the past but given that this tire is so rigid I couldn't exactly get my fingers under there to check. Any tell-tale signs that I would be pinching a tube? I took it for a quick spin around the neighborhood yesterday and jumped on it a few times-- everything seems to have held so far. I use 8.5in tire spoons and don't ever really pull them much further than 90 degrees to get the bead onto the rim. This combined with the fact that I always install the tire with the tube slightly inflated suggests to me that I should probably be ok, but I wanted to check with you guys if there was an obvious way to notice this before I take off a jump and land on my rim instead of tire
--RageD
