Originally Posted by
energyandair
It is a bit confusing.
We have 40-355 wire bead Racers and 32-355 folding bead Kojaks on our Birdy folding bikes. The Kojaks feel a lot faster. They also feel smoother despite the smaller size and more secure on the road. The differences are not subtle.
I also have Kojaks (35-559) installed tubeless with Stan's sealant on my Devinci hardtail (UST rims). These feel noticeably faster and smoother again though I've not been able to do an A-B test as the Devinci is in BC and the Birdy with Kojaks is in California.
Interesting. I'm comparing based on their own ratings on their website, I haven't used either. My local shop tried to talk me into the Racers, but I was looking for a tire closer to the gp4000's and the racers were neither that skinny or that light.
Originally Posted by
energyandair
Schwalbe now rate the tires as follows:
Tire / Speed - Grip - Protection - Durability
Kojak / 6-5-4-4
Racer / 6-6-5-4 (I'm not sure what the second row in the Racer ratings means)
Supreme / 5-6-5-4
Note the ratings now go up to 6. IIRC, I used to only see ratings up to 5. I think that they have added faster tires /versions and handled this by adding a level 6 rather than downgrading existing tires that have not changed.
I think what you wrote for the ratings is what I described looking at the site -
Kojak HS 385 | Schwalbe North America
Kojak HS 385 | Schwalbe North America
It's a little confusing because "5" is "5 grey boxes" whereas "6" is "5 blue boxes".
Originally Posted by
energyandair
The other thing I noticed is that the folding bead Racer differs from the wire bead Racer in construction and Compound as well as in Bead and Weight.
I assume that the performance characteristics are also significantly different and as I'm confident that my Kojaks are faster than my wire bead Racers, the Schwalbe ratings for the Racer can't be for the wire version.
Fair enough, I don't have experience with either other than browsing the site. Schwalbe seems to think the Racers are faster and better than the Kojaks, but I could believe they have it mixed up.