The blind test question is a good one. I want to say yes, but I'll be honest and say it depends. There are certain trails and sections where all I'm going by are feel (casing, rubber, tread a distant third) and other times where those are reversed. Whereas in fast conditions on harder ground, flat turns, loose over hard...I find it easier to feel what's going on with tread. Sometimes on the shore it's all about feel and how much confidence it inspires but the slower speeds can make some of the vagaries trickier to figure out definitively. I know that's not particularly helpful.
I'm going to have to go back to back with or without inserts (but not one of each) with Assegai and Butcher T9 to really know. Honestly, there's so little between them that at this point I don't think I could say I have a definitive favourite - so that's a considerable compliment to the Butcher T9. Without the experience on the section I described at length above I would have said Assegai, but now I'm not so sure...
March 5, 2021, 5:31 p.m. - Pete Roggeman
The blind test question is a good one. I want to say yes, but I'll be honest and say it depends. There are certain trails and sections where all I'm going by are feel (casing, rubber, tread a distant third) and other times where those are reversed. Whereas in fast conditions on harder ground, flat turns, loose over hard...I find it easier to feel what's going on with tread. Sometimes on the shore it's all about feel and how much confidence it inspires but the slower speeds can make some of the vagaries trickier to figure out definitively. I know that's not particularly helpful. I'm going to have to go back to back with or without inserts (but not one of each) with Assegai and Butcher T9 to really know. Honestly, there's so little between them that at this point I don't think I could say I have a definitive favourite - so that's a considerable compliment to the Butcher T9. Without the experience on the section I described at length above I would have said Assegai, but now I'm not so sure...