Vee Tire Trax CX

The Vee Tire Trax CX is a tubeless-ready cyclo-cross tyre that's a handy tread if you venture over a variety of terrains and conditions, but it's best behaved in hard-packed dirt and gravelly situations where it likes to be ridden fast.

Its tubeless-ready status means the sidewalls are thick and sturdy enough for the tyre to hold its shape off the wheel, which has its pluses and minuses. If you're running the tyre with a tube, that extra sidewall rigidity makes the Trax CX an unsupple tyre, and without running low pressures it's hard to get any feel through the tyre. This may or may not bother you, but at higher pressure the tyre can feel rigid, dull and lifeless with minimal feedback over rough terrain.

> Find your nearest dealer here

> Buy these online here

The plus side is that you can actually run pretty low tube pressures without fear of pinch punctures, as those sidewalls are stout enough to resist thumps and bumps quite well. Doing this does give you a little more conversation through the tyre, but it still feels a bit divorced from the terrain, so if you like a lot of tyre feedback then you're probably looking away already. But those robust sidewalls mean the tyre will hold its shape well if run tubeless, and not go all sloppy at the lower pressures you can get away with using fluid rather than tubes.

That sturdy sidewall also elevates the weight of the Trax CX and at 420-ish grams (the tested pair were 420g and 426g) they're noticeably on the big-boned side. This pretty much puts these tyres in the general mucking about bit-of-everything cyclo-cross category rather than lining up to race if you're a bit serious, but that's okay because they're pretty good at that.

As well as this 700 x 33 cyclo-cross size, the Trax CX is also available in 700 x 40, and 650B x 2.10 for more gravel-bikey and further reaching demands.

The tread on the Trax CX is Dual Compound, which means the body of the tread is made of a firm rubber while the outer is a softer and stickier compound. For you technical types that's a hardness of 56 A in the centre and a lower 48 A on the sides, which supposedly allows the tyres to maintain a fast rolling resistance with excellent cornering capabilities. It's this firmer body to the tread that also helps towards the slightly rigid feeling, but you do get a longer lasting tyre. Swings and roundabouts.

On tarmac, hardpacked off-road and gravelly stuff, the Trax CX roll well and are pleasingly fast. The pairing of rectangular-ish blocks down the middle of the tyre forms a pretty solid line, keeping things sprightly on the road and nippy as you like on firm dirt. Compared to the thick fat lugs down the centre, the tread to the sides looks rather sparse. Small diamonds of rubber line the hips of the tyre and pyramids of tread offer grip to the very edges, and all of these are linked together with a surface web of rubber to offer a little bit of stability to the tread.

> Buyer's Guide: Gravel and adventure bikes

The tread on the sides isn't that much to rely on really; it's okay in the dry, but as soon as the dirt gets greasy or there's a fairy whisper of dew on the grass, then sideways and off-camber grip becomes limited and you're counting on the width of those big central lugs for lateral traction, which isn't ideal.

When it comes to mud, the Trax performs less well – as you might imagine just by looking at the tread – although it shouldn't be written off entirely. If it's the tacky plasticine stuff then it does okay; it grips and clears well enough. But if the mud gets any deeper or more fluid then those large and flat central knobs get into trouble pretty quickly, fail to dig in and are unable to find any kind of useful grip. If you're riding on the slick mud that's layered over harder earth then you're in for a fun and Bambi-On-Ice time, where the tyre will disappear from underneath you in less than a heartbeat.

But that's pushing them beyond their designed intentions just to see what happens. If you ride your CX bike on a mix of drier terrains, and prefer gravel-riding, bridleway-bashing or general playing about to racing on your drop-barred off-road bike, then the Trax CX is a sturdy and versatile tyre.

Verdict

A versatile and fast tyre best suited for dry and gravelly conditions; run them tubeless if you can