Review: Terrene Chunk tyre

No, I’d never heard of Terrene tyres before either, and my first thought was “why would you name your tyres after a kind of paté?”.

But that’s spelled “terrine” of course, while terrene with an E is defined in the dictionary as “of or like earth” – which does make a bit more sense – and it’s apparently pronounced the same as “terrain” anyway.

I became aware of the Terrene Chunk when it was on sale at £21 on Planet X, and I thought the tread pattern and “tough” carcass designation looked promising for a 29er rear tyre. The first one that arrived had a massive cut in the sidewall, probably thanks to an over-enthusiastic box-opener (I used to do that all the time when I worked in supermarkets) and after a bit of a ballache changing it – thanks to Planet X’s ever-charming customer service department – I eventually got an undamaged one and mounted it up.

The tyre seems to be an honest 2.3in, perhaps a touch wider than the equivalent Maxxis tyres. And it was very easy to inflate tubeless (I do use a compressor, to be fair).

As you can see, the knobs are not exactly the chunkiest mofos around, however it definitely offers a bit more bite than the WTB Trail Boss I replaced with it.

I’ve done a fair bit of riding with it on the rear of my Enduro 29 now and I’ve been reasonably impressed. It digs in well on climbs, the braking traction is much better than a semi-slick and it holds a line OK riding off-camber sections.

It rolls quite well too, which is good ‘cos I like to use the E29 as my trail/XC machine and it can cover ground surprisingly quickly for a long-travel bike.

The 60tpi carcass feels less wooden than a WTB tough carcass – but while the “tekshield” reinforcement does a decent job of fending off flats, it’s not as sturdy as the WTB or Schwalbe’s Super Gravity carcass tyres.

It’s probably a bit tougher than Maxxis’ Exo casing tyres though, as you’d expect with a weight just over 1kg. I did put a hole in it on Rivington’s famous Ice Cream Run, but it sealed quickly enough.

So is it worth buying? Well I noticed they were down to £18 last week (and still are at time of writing), so I’ve nabbed another one for future use.

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