The Continental Race King Black Chili Protection Tire is the best choice for those looking for pure speed along with thorn battling durability. The key ingredient is the ProTection layer -- a fourth ply of rubber-wrapped, extra tough nylon casing that encompasses the entire tire.

While the tire can withstand prickly thorns, babyheads, and sharp edges better than most, its rolled shoulder profile and diamond-head arrow center tread pattern is primarily designed for superb power transfer while maintaining a very low profile so that it rolls exceptionally fast. Luckily, Continental also incorporates transitional knobs from the center to the shoulder of the tire, so that when you're making quick weight transfers, from cornering to straight-ahead power and back again, the tire remains stable and secure beneath you. The shoulder knobs are low-profile, like the rest of the tread. Along the outer edge the pattern is doubled, with a ramped leading edge followed by a block tread -- the ramps roll quickly, but the block bites into the dirt for better traction.

Here's the caveat about different types of mud: The tread pattern is fairly tight and if your home turf features stickier mud rather than the soupy variety (clay, perhaps?), a tire with a more open pattern, like Continental's X-King, would shed the slop more quickly. Or for a good pairing for most racing conditions, choose the X-King on the nose, for tauter steering control, and the Race King on the tail, for quicker acceleration and faster rolling.

The Race King Protection Tire also incorporates Continental's exclusive Black Chili Compound, tiny fragments of embedded carbon that improve grip by allowing faster rubber deformation, so you get a sensation of the tire clinging through corners rather than suddenly breaking loose.

The Continental Race King Black Chili Protection Tire is a 26" tire and comes in a 2.2" width. The casing features 4 plies totaling 240 TPI under the tread and sidewalls. The tire bead is foldable, and it comes in black on black.

Application: XC Race / Trail

Ground: Loose, Hard, Dry