Review: Vee Tire Crown tires
Former MTB and BMX champion Mike King on a technical descent in Southern California (click to enlarge).
The Lowdown: Vee Tire Crown Tires
A couple years ago, we didn’t know what to think of Vee Tire Co. Previously called Vee Rubber, they had a dizzying array of tires that seemed to hit every pricepoint and market opportunity.
But they recently rebranded to Vee Tire and refocused their efforts on high-end tires and emerging new tire standards. We’ve been hearing great things from users who’ve used the product and were excited to try their new Crown tires ourselves.
Off the bat, the tires didn’t look too exciting with their seemingly geometric knob patterns. But the supple 120tpi casing, consistent construction and grippy Tackee rubber compound performed better than expected. Check out our full review below to learn more.
For more back story, see the Vee Tire Crown Quick Take feature from October, 2014.
| Versions: Crown F, Crown R, Crown Gem | Bead: Folding |
| Sizes: 29 x 2.3, 27.5 x 2.35 | Terrain: All-mountain/enduro |
| Weight: Crown F 830g; Crown R 810g | MSRP: Starting at $55 |
| Compounds: Dual Compound, Stickee Compound |
Rating:  4 Chilis-out-of-5 |
| Casing: 120tpi |
Pluses |
Minuses |
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performance in mud |
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knobs |
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but is not light and rubber is very grippy |
Full Review: Vee Tire Crown Tires
Vee Tire is a serious new player in the mountain biking scene, as they’ve evolved from followers to innovators when it comes to new tire sizes and designs.
The Crown Series tires are a little hard to categorize, but they’re short tread height and closely spaced rear knobs say they should be good XC/trail tires. We put it on our test Trek Fuel 29er and were off.
Front and rear tires shown here (click to enlarge).
Size and volume looked decent and that justified the 800+ gram weight. Tires mounted tubeless easily and spun true. Something noticeable was the tires had a supple casing and good comfort and traction, as the casing conformed to trail bumps and obstacles.
The tires were surprisingly grippy. We attribute that to the supple casing and soft, grippy rubber Tackee compound. Transitioning from upright to a leaning cornering position was predictable, and the knobs had good transition knobs with no knob gaps when leaning.
This is the front specific tire with open spaced knobs and good transition knobs (click to enlarge).
The rear tire was quite fast as well, with its closely spaced low height knobs. It wasn’t XC race fast perhaps due to the very sticky rubber used.
Weaknesses appeared in wet weather performance, as these seem like their designed for dry weather with low, closely space knobs. And the other downside is they’re not quite excellent at XC climbing or descending as it is grippy but with XC tread. But if all around versatility is a priority, these tires are a quality option.
For more information visit veetireco.com.
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