Schwalbe Announce Cheesy Chan DH Tire as Ordered by Daprela & Pierron

The 2022 Total UCI World Cup Downhill Winner, Amaury Pierron, challenged Schwalbe to supply the quickest ever downhill mountain bike tire. The outcome? The Cheesy Chan, an all-new tread sample that has been beneath improvement for nearly three years.

The duty set out by Pierron and his staff mates, Thibaut Daprela and Myriam Nicole, was truly just a little extra nuanced than that. They requested for a tire that was faster-rolling, with a extra exact experience really feel than the Magic Mary, with out giving up braking efficiency alongside the best way.

Schwalbe Cheesy Chan

Within the improvement of the Cheesy Chan, Schwalbe took benefit of the massive tread blocks of the Massive Betty. No fewer than twelve cuts of its tread sample have been examined back-to-back by the staff, within the hunt for a tire that exhibited that elevated precision the riders have been after.

The preliminary reduce taken ahead from the twelve choices was related, however not an identical, to the tread sample launched right now. Ramps have been added to the center-tread lugs to scale back rolling resistance, and the shoulder lugs have been made 20% extra secure than these seen on the Magic Mary to end in elevated lateral help. Braking edges have been elevated marginally, and the space between heart lugs was elevated by 10% with a view to enable every to “nibble into the bottom higher” – as Jack Studying places it.

An early prototype of the Cheesy Chan was raced by Thibaut Daprela on the 2021 World Championships in Val di Sole. Regardless of using properly in his qualification run, Thibaut crashed twice in his finals run. Although it may be onerous to say precisely what precipitated any crash, Schwalbe took an extended onerous look within the mirror and requested themselves if the tire was at fault.

The suggestions from Thibaut himself was that the tire had potential, nevertheless it hadn’t reached the end line in his eyes. Additional refinements have been wanted – particularly, the massive edge lugs have been too stiff, too unyielding, and extra cornering management was required.

From there, Schwalbe made the next key modifications:

• Shoulder lugs have been lowered in quantity, however with the braking edge rising by 1mm
• Additional siping was added to provide extra lateral flex to the shoulder knobs

Schwalbe Cheesy Chan: First Impressions

On the launch occasion in Leogang, we have been handed a Commencal Meta POWER TR. The 140mm eMTB delivers its rear wheel journey by way of the four-bar Contact System, and is damped by a RockShox Tremendous Deluxe Final Coil. Its 29″ wheels have been house to a set of the two.4″ Schwalbe Cheesy Chan tires within the Tremendous Downhill casing with the Addix Extremely Gentle compound making up the tread cap.

To get a really feel for the tire, we have been handled to a combination of quick, ultra-flattering bike park descents and extra pure, slender sections of singletrack plagued by roots. Path circumstances have been very dry; most surfaces have been hard-packed, with a small dose of loose-over-hard thrown in for good measure.

To be clear; this isn’t a evaluation. To touch upon how the Cheesy Chan compares to another tires of this style can be disingenuous. I don’t typically experience such flattering bike park circumstances, nor do I typically experience coil-sprung eBikes. A set of Cheesy Chan tires are making their method house with me, for the needs of back-to-back testing within the Tweed Valley.

With that in thoughts, listed here are my preliminary ideas.

With 17 PSI within the entrance tire and 20 PSI within the rear, I set off down the Steinberg Line by Fox, a mellow monitor with clean, quick berms and the occasional alternative to double some rollers. I had a good time, and was tremendous impressed with how simply manageable, and even playful, the Commencal Meta Energy TR was. However, you’re not right here to listen to about eBikes.

The Schwalbe Cheesy Chan wasn’t developed with eBikes in thoughts – although it’s E50 permitted – however my preliminary thought is that it’s definitely not a foul choice. It didn’t take too many corners to stand up to a superb velocity, and the tires felt constant all through an extended descent of the bike park.

Splatters of tire sealant on the sidewalls counsel the entrance and rear tires have been burping just a little air in turns, however I can’t say I truly felt these moments whereas using the monitor. It’s attainable the tires could have benefited from just a little extra air. Precision of the tire felt good when pushing for grip to provoke cornering, although I wasn’t but in a spot the place I needed to belief the setup with riskier maneuvers on the loose-over-hard patches of monitor.

Extra belief within the bike and tires got here on the second day of using the identical tracks, and I did on a handful of events find yourself at increased lean angles that induced a substantial quantity of pleasure and concern in equal measure. Nonetheless, the Schwalbe Cheesy Chan held the road with out drama, suggesting I used to be nonetheless a method off discovering the sting of its grip.

On the extra pure trails that featured extra unfastened, much less well-supported corners, I did really feel just a little vagueness on the entrance tire in conditions the place I used to be maybe not weighting the entrance wheel fairly as a lot as I ought to have been. The entrance wheel by no means washed completely, however warning pictures have been fired, reminding me to load up the entrance tire extra to make sure it might demand grip from the terrain.

Jack Studying, a World Cup Downhill athlete supported by Schwalbe, did say that the Schwalbe Cheesy Chan performs at its greatest when it’s ridden onerous, and my expertise is definitely in line with that.

By way of put on, the rear tire had begun to lose its braking edges after lower than a day’s value of using within the bike park – the above photograph is of the rear tire ridden by a fellow journalist who’s considerably extra aggressive and, he wont thoughts me saying, heavier than I’m.

To be honest, you’re in for a really costly season on the bike park when you’re desirous to run Addix Extremely Gentle on the rear for the period. Within the curiosity of sturdiness, you’d in all probability need to go together with the faster-rolling Addix Gentle compound choice – however that’s solely out there in 27.5″ x 2.4″ within the Tremendous Gravity casing. Certainly, the Cheesy Chan launches with simply six choices, particulars on which might be discovered within the desk under.

Again-to-back testing of the Magic Mary versus the Cheesy Chan is booked in for subsequent month. A extra thorough, insightful evaluation will probably be offered thereafter.

Pricing & Availability

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