Product Spotlight – Terrene “McFly” 2.8” 29+ Tires – By Smithhammer

Marty McFly: Hey, Doc, we better back up. We don’t have enough road to get up to 88.

Dr. Emmett Brown: Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.

Terrene Tires hit the niche tire market hard right out of the gate in 2016, focusing primarily on the gravel, plus and fat sectors (with a few “normal” size mtb tires to boot). While a new company, Terrene boasts decades of industry experience behind its founders Tim Kreuger and Joe Yang, and all this prior experience is evident in their designs, which have been notably well-received so far. 2017 brings us their new 29+ offering, the 2.8” McFly. While “a versatile all-terrain tire designed to excel in all conditions and terrains—from an adventure tour, to a cross country ride, to your next enduro” sounds like a fairly common description these days, my initial impression is that the McFly looks like it has the potential to seriously deliver on this broad claim. The McFly sports a moderately aggressive tread, with lower blocks in the center for rolling efficiency and larger side knobs to keep those big wagon wheels on track in the corners. I think the 2.8” size holds a lot of promise as a ‘sweet spot’ for 29+ tires in most applications, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting getting my hands on a pair of these.

Like all Terrene tires, the McFly is tubeless ready. However, my Surly Rabbit Hole rims are most definitely not, and I had to resort to the split-tube method to mount these tires up, which went without a hiccup and which I still consider the most reliable way to adapt a non-tubeless ready rim. After being mounted for a week at 25psi and then eventually down to about 15spi, the McFly measured 2.69” at the full tread width and 2.66” at the casing on an i45 rim. After extended usage, we will re-check these measurements, see if anything has changed and let you know.

The McFly is available in both “Light” (120 tpi) and “Tough” (60 tpi) versions. Both tires I received weighed exactly the same – 765 grams on the digital scale, which made me do a double-take. I turned the scale off, turned it on again, same results. This is well under the stated weight on the Terrene website of 876 grams for the Light version.

Casing and Tread Widths

Can a 29+ plus tire this impressively light hold up to the real-world abuses of its intended “adventure” usage? Stay tuned – we plan to put these puppies through the wringer on singletrack, multi-day trips and some good ‘ol suburban hooliganism over the next couple months and report back with the honest goods. Till then, keep the chubby down…

For more information about Terrene Tires visit – http://terrenetires.com/