Ikon - 3C MaxxSpeed and EXO

For the last year and a half I have been running 650b x 47 tires on my Salsa Journeyman. While they're great for some racing and other light off-pavement rides, they don't do well on a lot of chunky gravel and singletrack that we have here where I live. I do a lot of bikepacking so I decided to give the Maxxis Ikon's a try after doing some research.I traditionally use WTB tires but they are very difficult to mount and dismount. Maxxis tires are a breeze in this case. These are rated as an XC tire but did well with grip and handling on a fully loaded bike. They rolled well on pavement, hard pack, loose, gravel and did really well in wet conditions.Unfortunately I only got in about 8 rides on them before a woman hit me with her car, destroying my bike. I am keeping the Ikon's to mount on my next gravel rig because I'm so happy with them.

Tires roll nice and fast. Excellent balance between weight, strength, and traction for a XC tire. Much better traction than other tires I have had that were similar for straight-line speed. Tires performed well in snow/icy conditions and were great in heavy rain; I went for one rainy ride when I had not gotten fenders for new bike yet and I had much less spray back into my face than I expected due to tires shedding water so well. No flats or punctures yet which is a frequent issue where I live with a lot of road debris and broken glass on sidewalks and paths. I did have some problems with them holding pressure at first (would lose about 10-15 PSI overnight), but after a few days it stopped, so if you have similar issues running tubeless you might just need to give it a couple days.

I live in an area where there’s lots of category 3 & 4 gravel, so MTB’s are common in these roads. The Ikons work great! Good grip. Reasonable speed (well, they were 2.2” feet wide!). I’ve got about 110 gravel miles on them and 10 on single track. Completely satisfied with them!

This is the tire that all the guys I ride with and I use for racing. It is extremely fast, and the EXO makes it very durable for such a light tire. It's also one of the easiest tires to set up Tubeless that I have used to date. It holds its grip exceptionally well on rocks and loose climbs, and it also corners well if you hold your technique. Some of my friends experience some washout in hard flat corners, but I have not had that problem and we all ride at similar speeds so the difference must be cornering technique.All in all, this is my current favorite race tire. There are some faster tires out there, but I don't like flats. I also like to run an Ardent on the front, but I can FEEL the added weight/drag when I am racing...so I've gone to a IKON on both front and back this season.

So far so good! I've long been searching for the ideal tubeless tire for my riding style. I ride single speed (hardtail obviously) in the northeast. Most of our trails are very rocky to super rocky. Though I find myself on fast hardpack from time to time too. I've long been a fan of Maxxis tires. Recently the Ardent since it's pretty bullet proof (hate flats!). I've been running the Ardent tubeless w/ sealant even though Maxxis says not to (many people do - it's fine). Now Maxxis finally has an official Tubeless Ready tire! It doesn't look like the tread is beefy enough for my local trails but they have surprising grip so far. And they are much lighter than the Ardent which is really a free ride tire. I'll update if the local trails rip the sidewalls soon... which is what happens to lesser tires.

I held off on this review until I put these through a good workout in various conditions. On the positive side these tires have been bullet proof so far. I mounted these on Bontrager RL rims. In temperatures above 50 degrees they hold air the pressure constant for a couple weeks -- without any sealant.They do great on hard pack and loose conditions as long as the loose stuff is under an inch deep. They do okay in shallow mud. On the downside, in deeper loose stuff and in deeper mud these tires tend to wash out abruptly and don't recover as well as I'd like. These tires have no grip on wet roots or rocks -- regardless of the amount of air I set them to. In summary they do fine for most of the riding I do on well groomed single track when the conditions are on the drier side.

I ran them over 700 miles of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route in Colorado and New Mexico. Still look new.

My son need new tires on his mountain bike and he picked the Maxxis Ikon Folding Tire and he is very pleased with the tire. He is so pleased that he bought another one.The tires ride very smooth and his primary mode of transportation is his bike. He rides mostly on pavement and he said his ride has improved quite a bit from his other tires. It rides very smooth and has great grip. Besides, the tires look great on his Giant mount bike!!This is his first experience with tubeless tires and he couldn't be happier with them.