With tall and widely spaced tread patterns mud tyres have a tendency to be a little lively when you’re hitting wet roots and rocks, but these Storm’s manage to buck that trend.

We reckon the key to their performance lies in their relatively soft compound. This manages to keep hold of rocks and roots where other tyres would give way, but of course we still have to play the age old game of compromise. On the one hand you get the great grip on those kind of surfaces, but on the other hand you do definitely pay a bit of a penalty in the rolling stakes. They’re not anchors by any means, and they’re still faster than many, but compared back to back with the Conti Mud Kings you do notice the difference.

As for grip in pure mud, these might not be the absolute best trail mud tyres but they’re still definitely up there very near the top. Actually, if you’re running 29″ wheels these possibly are the best. Aside from the great all-round grip we particularly like the fact that Specialized offer these tyres with two different casing options (S-Works or Control), both of which sell for the same great value price. Even the heavier and tougher Control casing version only weighs 612g in the 29″ size so it’s certainly no heavyweight. If you’re looking to save weight though then the lighter S-Works works well up front, but we’d draw a line at using it on the rear. Oh, and whichever casing and wheel size you choose the width stays the same at 2.0″.

Overall, if the trails that you ride consist of a lot of mud which is littered with rocks and roots then the Specialized Storm tyres really are hard to beat.

Price: £29.99
www.specialized.com

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