Continental on Designing, Developing, & Testing Their Overhauled Tire Lineup

Bikes & Big Ideas

Continental’s overhauled gravity tire lineup has had a lot of success, both on the World Cup Downhill circuit and with everyday riders (we’ve personally been huge fans of the Kryptotals).

It’s a big departure from their prior offerings, with 5 new tread patterns to go with overhauled casings and rubber compounds, and we sat down with Alexander Hänke, the product manager behind the lineup, and Dan Brown, the CEO of Atherton Bikes and Team Director of Continental Atherton Racing, to talk all about their development, hear their takes on what makes a good tire, and a whole lot more.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

Introducing Alex and Dan (1:46)

Where to start when overhauling a complete tire lineup? (4:02)

Designing tires for World Cup Downhillers vs. mere mortals (9:24)

Beginning the development process (13:12)

Starting with casing designs & their importance (16:42)

Tread pattern design (22:38)

Splitting the Kryptotal into front and rear models (25:08)

The Continental gravity tire lineup (28:32)

Rubber compounds & why softer doesn’t always equal more grip (33:56)

Choosing which variants to offer (42:02)

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