The Foot Down

If there is one thing that drives brakeless fixed gear riders mad it’s tyres, mainly because you pay for something that you instantly go out and destroy, it’s a losing battle right from the second you hand over your cash money. MMA Sports very kindly sent me a set of Maxxis Re-Fuse to try out a couple of months ago, this is an account of what I thought of them.

The first thing that struck me was that they were foldables, I felt like a real pro when I opened the box cause I’d never had a set of ‘posh floppy’ tyres before. After a bit of unfolding, wiggling, shaking and squeezing they were nice and round and went onto my rims pretty easily. I hate super tight tyres, I’ve got a Vredestein on the front that sent me into a blind rage once cause it was such a hassle getting it on, these are just right, they don’t go on so easily that you worry about them coming off but also don’t make you look away in fear of your levers snapping and piercing your cheek when trying to get them on.

I just put one on the back to test and pumped the sucker up to 120, there’s nothing like a nice rock hard tyre. I hit the road, nothing was out of the ordinary and then ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I did a skid, what the hell was that? I did another and ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE it happened again, ‘what an interesting sound’ I thought to myself and went about my business. That night I was chatting to Dan from MMA and told him about the wacky skidding noise, he went on to tell me that it was a feature designed by Maxxis as an early warning system that let people know you were performing an emergency skid. I couldn’t wait to write my review and tell people about this, unfortunately Dan was just taking the piss and left me feeling like a total sucker, haha. After a few days riding the noise stops when the ‘Diamond knurled slick design’ wears in a bit which is a shame cause I kinda liked it.

I did a lot of riding in the rain during the test month and I was really impressed by how well the Re-Fuse gripped in the wet, my brakeless commute is often a pretty scary affair, I ride with great caution when its wet but skidding often results in very little reduction in speed even at low speeds. The excellent gripping was really  noticeable and filled me with confidence when commuting to and from work. Although grippy they certainly aren’t ‘sticky’, they skid well in the dry and better than normal in the wet, don’t ask me how they just do.

On to wear. As I said at the start, when you ride brakeless your back tyre doesn’t last, for me a shitty tyre lasts two weeks and anything around about a month is worth buying again. These very much fall into the ‘buy again’ category. I usually employ the rotating trick to make my tyres last longer, which, for anyone new to this means that I take the chain off and rotate the wheel a few teeth then attach the chain again which moves the ‘skid spots’ and lengthens the life of the rubber. For this test I didn’t rotate, I wanted to push this tyre to see how well it stood up to the downhill skid onslaught I would be giving it every morning on my way into town. It took three weeks before the top layer finally wore through and another week again before it reached the state you can see in the photo below. There was life left in the old dog, it was nowhere near through to the tube but I was going on a long ride so I decided to whip it off and fit the second of the test tyres just in case. I am only two weeks into using that one and will be rotating to see how long it lasts under my normal maintenance routine, I will update this review in due course.

Most other reviews of the Maxxis Re-Fuse tyres talk about how great the puncture resistance is, I haven’t had any punctures yet but I also haven’t had any on the front which is the Vredestein so I can’t really comment on it. The general consensus is that it is one of the most puncture resistant tyres on the market. I have mostly dealt with grip and wear in this review because that’s what I feel are the key points for a fixed gear rider, for a more bike geeky mini-review check this out on the London forum. The one negative thing I have to say is that the graphic on the tyre is pretty crappy but thats just personal preference.

In conclusion, the Maxxis Re-Fuse tyre is very grippy in all conditions and pretty hardwearing even if you skid a lot. They are available from as little as £17.99 which is a lot less than a months worth of petrol or bus tickets. Full technical data can be found on the Maxxis website.

Finally, MMA would like your opinion on which coloured Re-Fuse tyres you’d most like them to stock, check out the colours below then post in the comments which ones you like the most, I’ll pass the message on, cheers.

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