Review: Maxxis Severe grips through the goop

A cross country mud tire is a bit of a niche bit of equipment but when you need it you really need it. With its new Severe tread pattern, Maxxis gives wet weather its due respect with a well thought out wet-weather specialist.

Before the Severe, Maxxis relied on the Forekaster for  wet cross country condition. When the Forekaster morphed into a instant-favourite trail tire, Maxxis set about completely re-thinking what XC racing required in muddy conditions.

Pre-mud look at a fresh Severe and its spaced-out tread pattern

A Severe its natural state

The old Forekaster

The new Maxxis Severe

The result is the Severe. While it takes some cues from the old Forekaster, like plenty of spacing between knobs to clear mud, it is a very different tread. One of the main changes is a continuous line of center knobs, alternating just slightly offset to either side of the tire’s middle. Since even the muddiest World Cup course tends to have a stretch of tarmac or hardpack, this strip of center knobs aims to keep the Severe rolling with speed when it’s not absolutely fighting for traction.

There’s quite a bit of open space between the center and the two rows of shoulder and side lugs. Both rows are quite spaced out to improve mud shedding. The knobs themselves are short and spiky to dig in and hunt for traction in soft terrain.

Maxxis uses a supple, 120 TPI casing on the Severe. It comes in 27.5″ or 29″ sizes, but only in a narrow 2.25″ width. That’s designed to cut through the mud to find grip instead of getting stuck floating and skidding on top of mud.  It is tubeless ready, uses EXO casing and Maxxis’ new MaxxSpeed rubber compound.

Review: on the trail (and in the mud) with Maxxis Severe

Getting the Severe’s set up was a straight forward affair. They went on the rim (a set of alloy Ibis rims) without too much effort, seated easliy with a floor pump between 20 and 25 p.s.i. This is consistent with Maxxis quality. That’s one of the things that keeps the brand on top when there are more and more good tire options out there these days.

I’ve had a chance to ride the Severe’s through a few different types of mud at this point. Basically anything short of true, terrible sticky peanut butter muck. The spaced out tread does its job of clearing mud quickly. The narrow tread digs in enough to find traction while there still feel like there’s cornering bite, in the mud and on more forgiving stretches between puddles. Maxxis’ row of center knobs add some speed on hardpack and tarmac. That helps make these a real race tire, too.

While this is definitely a mud tire, the side and shoulder rows offer enough grip that these will still be fast if the race course dries out a little between laps. They’re still not going to be anyone’s first choice in dry conditions, though. The spiky lugs that don’t roll as fast as a dry tire but also aren’t tall enough to really grip in dust. It’s hard to say much about the new MaxxSpeed compound based on the Severe. But we’ve been running a pair of Ikon’s in MaxxSpeed, too, and have yet to run into any issues. At 740 grams in 29″ (our test tires were both within 1 gram) it’s a little heavier than the minimalist Aspen but lighter than the Rekon Race.

An improvement over Forekaster in overcast conditions

The old Forekaster was never my favourite wet weather tire. It was downright squirrely in the dry, too. I think the new Severe is a significan’t improvement for Maxxis in the mud tire category. A specialist, to be sure, but one that’s very good in those conditions.

Maxxis Severe.