blistovmhz
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Vancouver, BC
I couldn't find any serious discussion on the subject of siping MT's. Given I've got a set of very aggressively siped KM2's, but there's not a lot of tread left, it about time for new shoes and the question of siping comes up.
In my experience, siping adds a tremendous amount of traction on wet pavement/rocks, but has really no affect in mud (which makes sense). I really don't feel there is any argument about this, but what I can't find any agreement on is tread life. Does siping increase, decrease, or have no affect on it?
Increased tread longevity makes intuitive sense for wet street conditions, as traction is increased, thus slippage is decreased. On dry pavement or any rocks though, I'm really not sure. On dry, I suspect that siping has a dramatic negative affect on tread life. On the rocks, probably the same simply because each lug is not split into smaller, weaker sections and are more prone to ripping off.
I've definitely seen the rock issue with my siped KM2's. As soon as I started hitting the rocks with them, rubber just started flying off. I went from 75% to around 25% tread in a season of hard wheeling (generally every weekend).
That said, any "internet experts" wanna chime in on this? Ultimately I'm sorta less concerned about street traction for my rig, as it's ridiculously heavy, on locked 35's so I can't imagine noticing any big performance increase in all but the most extreme torque situations. On the trail however, I definitely feel like the sipes help on wet rock (as evidenced by my rig flying past very similarly built rigs with the same, but non-siped shoes). On dry, I really have no idea. I can't decide if tread life really matters to me given how ridiculously well they grab (siped).
In my experience, siping adds a tremendous amount of traction on wet pavement/rocks, but has really no affect in mud (which makes sense). I really don't feel there is any argument about this, but what I can't find any agreement on is tread life. Does siping increase, decrease, or have no affect on it?
Increased tread longevity makes intuitive sense for wet street conditions, as traction is increased, thus slippage is decreased. On dry pavement or any rocks though, I'm really not sure. On dry, I suspect that siping has a dramatic negative affect on tread life. On the rocks, probably the same simply because each lug is not split into smaller, weaker sections and are more prone to ripping off.
I've definitely seen the rock issue with my siped KM2's. As soon as I started hitting the rocks with them, rubber just started flying off. I went from 75% to around 25% tread in a season of hard wheeling (generally every weekend).
That said, any "internet experts" wanna chime in on this? Ultimately I'm sorta less concerned about street traction for my rig, as it's ridiculously heavy, on locked 35's so I can't imagine noticing any big performance increase in all but the most extreme torque situations. On the trail however, I definitely feel like the sipes help on wet rock (as evidenced by my rig flying past very similarly built rigs with the same, but non-siped shoes). On dry, I really have no idea. I can't decide if tread life really matters to me given how ridiculously well they grab (siped).