WTB Raijin 2.1

Last 2 weekend ride was awful. Towards the ending of the off-road ride, I hit one of the muddy trails and then left for the exit towards car park. As I was cruising down the tarmac stretch, there were plenty of grits flung off from my front and back wheels. One of them landed into my left eye.

It was so unbearable and I couldnt open my eye. My left eye soon became reddish and watery. I quickly took off my gloves and clean my eye with the water pack. The cause was mainly the current non-kevlar tires which couldn't shed off those mud and grits quickly!

Today during lunch time, I left office for a quick lunch and I stopped by at a LBS(Local Bike Shop). My initial plan is to scout for lighter and more flexible tires than my current traditional hard compound tires.

Hanging on the racks are some Maxxis and Hutchinson tires. I miss my Hutchinson Mosquito Air Light but lately, I can't find that model anymore. The only Hutchinson available so far is Hutchinson Spider Air Light OEM. Even though the price is cheaper than boxed version (RM150 per pair), I didn't like it the tread design. I prefer block-tread design.

I then looked around on the range of tires hooked to the ceiling and I found a pair with good, simple block-tread design for good mud clearing. Both tires come with green stripe and I am not sure for what purpose when the manufacturer marked them that way. They are the WTB Raijin 2.1.

I took it off and to my surprise, they are as light as the Hutchinsons and they are not even Kevlar-based tires. I managed to bargain with the seller and got the set for RM110. I came back to office and I found these review by Guy Kesteven on bike radar...



"One of WTB's newer treads, this was another one that was liked enough to have gone AWOL when the photo call came round. Another simple very open tread with trapezoidal blocks, the Raijin handles both very wet and mixed mess trails conditions well.

Traction is dependably good in all directions and at all angles of lean. The wide-spaced side knobs mean that they slide quite early if pushed, but it's a controllable smear rather than a sudden snap.



In fact, they're very easy to snatch back into traction from any slide, making them great for sketchy technical trails. The soft DNA compound results in good adhesion to rocks and roots too and they blow up nearer 2.25 than 2.1in for reasonable float and protection despite low weight.



On harder terrain they are pretty slow and growly though. The soft 50 duro compound means that they get tatty extremely quickly if you're pushing them hard as they encourage you too, which makes the already high price more of an issue."

Product Link: [ http://www.wtb.com/products/tires/xcracing/raijin/ ]

Tarmac Test...
So far, I just managed to try out the tires on tarmac. Trust me, no one would enjoy climbing tarmac with this tires. It was so grippy when climbing up the tarmac hill. Going down hill was so noisy with loud humming sound. So Annoying!

The best usage for this tires is on nice trails around Forest Reserve and Kiara Technical Trail. I have tested it over and over again on lower air pressure for superb contact on different sections of the trails. I am happy to say that this tires never fail - FLAWLESS fast rolling rubbers!