WTB Riddler tyre review
August 5th, 2015
By Andrew Dodd in Reviews
Full Product Name: WTB Riddler TCS Tough 27.5
Retail Price: £60
Available From: Hotlines
Fast rolling rear tyre with aggressive shoulders
Designed primarily as a fast rolling rear tyre but with plenty of support for hitting turns hard, the Riddler is named after team rider Nathan Riddle who helped develop this tyre.
Nathan wanted a fast rolling tyre like the Beeline, but with the cornering support of the Vigilante.
The WTB Riddler tyre is exactly that!
The Riddler has a slightly taller and narrower carcass shape that works well on a variety of different rim widths.
Two models are available – TCS (tubeless compatible system) Light and the TCS Tough. The light model weighs under 870grams for a full 2.4 carcass size, currently only comes in 27.5in and uses Dual DNA rubber – a mix of hard centre tread and softer shoulders for cornering control.
The TCS Tough model – that we tested – uses the same rubber, though using a heavier duty carcass it weighs in at just over 1110grams and is targeted at harder hitting riders needing a tougher tyre for racing formats like enduro.
The knurled central tread of the WTB Riddler offers a surprising amount of grip, given the minimal rolling resistance.
Fast rolling tyres with aggressive shoulders are popular at the moment – Schwalbe offer the Rock Razor, and Specialized have the Slaughter Grid. The Riddler is very similar – though the carcass shape is a little taller and narrower than the other offerings.
This should be taken in to account when looking at this sort of tyre, as with a rounder profile the transition from the central tread to the defined shoulders is smoother and more predictable. When mounted on wider rims, the tyre shape can be a little square – great when you are stuffing the tyre in to a hard turn, but not so good in intermediate turns.
We tried the Riddler on Mavic Crossmax XL rims (24mm external), Easton Heist (34mm external) and Ibis 741 (41mm external) and found it worked well on all three sizes.
We know from previous experience that the Schwalbe in particular can be a touch too square on wider rims.
The WTB Riddler offers the best of both worlds for a rear tyre – fast rolling and decent cornering grip. Just don’t expect too much under braking or when things get damp…
The central knurled pattern is minimal, but offers a surprising amount of traction under both acceleration and braking.
As you might expect it does clog fairly easily in mud, and braking gets a little rowdy when wet – but it does what it’s supposed to do, and it does it really well. The shoulders are easy to lean in hard on turns – they are grippy enough, but not so soft that they deform. And of course the Riddler rolls very fast.
We say
The WTB Riddler is an immensely fast rolling tyre, considering the support and grip it offers in the turns. We used it in a variety of conditions, and although things got a little wild in damp conditions it fares well in the UK as a fair weather tyre.
We found the TCS Tough model offered such good support, that we would rather accept the weight penalty and have piece of mind over the lighter weight model. It’s definitely a new favourite here at Factory Jackson.
What tyres do you guys rate for faster conditions?
Let us know in the comments below…
