Grabbed a couple of the Der Kaisers about a month ago, have since run them into the ground (rear one is literally bald, as in it's hard to see where the knobs used to be). Up until now I've almost exclusively run Maxxis, mostly Minions DHFs in their various compounds (have owned countless 40a/42a and a few 60a), though recently I've also tried a few Schwalbes (Dirty Dan and Muddy Mary). Was pretty keen to check out the Der Kaisers since the "Black Chili" compound they use is supposed to be pretty cool, they claim extremely good grip as well as slow wear characteristics. RRP in Canada is $95cad, vs Maxxis 42a at $90cad - more or less the same.
First impression - the bead seats properly and easily (rims are Mavic 823s) when you install it, definitely easier than the Schwalbe beads to get to seat properly and probably equivalent or slightly easier than Maxxis. The compound feels super soft, but has a weird kind of texture, almost feels a tiny bit greasy to the touch. The tread pattern didn't seem particularly inspired one way or another except insofar as having similarities to a Highroller but with longer (lengthways around the tyre) centre knobs that turned out to be a lot more resistant to tearing off than Highrollers typically are. Don't recommend riding without goggles on if you have one of these as a front tyre, as the compound is so soft it picks up a LOT of gravel and whatnot and flicks it up in your face. The 2.5 Der Kaiser is bigger than a 2.5 Maxxis (mostly due to the fact that Maxxis tyres are undersized for their nominal size compared to all the other brands), maybe closer to a 2.7 Minion. I don't know what the weight is, nor do I really care, seems about the same as most other DH tyres as far as I can tell.
I put these tyres on (front and rear) a month ago, have probably logged about 20 days on them since then. The front one is pretty much done, the rear one is completely toast and has been for a few days now - I'm that guy who skids and puts braking bumps in trails, sorry! Grip-wise, they seem fairly equivalent to a Minion 40a in most situations, the notable exception being dusty rock faces where they scared me a couple of times, but in fairness dusty rocks are always fairly slippery. In the wet I thought they were reasonably good but when they did slide out, they seemed to do it a bit more suddenly and with a bit less feedback than Schwalbe/Maxxis stuff.
I did find them a little bit less predictable than a Minion on the rear in pretty well all situations; up until the point where the wear was quite significant, they tended to either grip or slide with relatively little slow/controllable slippage in between. However, this was just my impression and not a characteristic that I thought was extreme or even particularly significant. Some people might find the opposite on their own trails, it certainly wasn't a dealbreaker to me anyway. Actual outright grip was up there with pretty much anything else in most conditions. One guy I know who ran them for a while said he thought they were pretty slippery in the wet, but I didn't find em much if any worse than anything else.
Longevity of the tyres was good I thought, I am fortunate enough to be able to ride a lot and I go through tyres very quickly, but these have lasted me longer than anything else I've owned except 60a Minions. Given how soft the compound is, that's fairly impressive. They stayed looking brand new for a surprisingly long time but when they did begin to show their age they did it fairly suddenly - knobs went from still having well defined square edges to having big tears in them very quickly.
What was not so impressive was the flat resistance - despite having snakeskin sidewalls or whatever they call it, they definitely are not as bombproof as Maxxis sidewalls. I've had 3 or 4 rear flats in the past month (vs that many in 5 years with Maxxis), even though I always keep tyre pressures pretty high, and even had a front flat at high speed that caused a crash mid race-run (vs one front flat with Maxxis ever, that was caused BY a crash!). I get the impression from the feel of the tyre casing that the anti-pinch inserts or whatever don't go high enough up the sidewall of the tyre, but I'm not a tyre designer and I could be wrong on that.
The long and the short of it - outright grip is good in most situations, wear rate is very good given the grip/softness of the rubber, if the price is comparable to Maxxis then lifespan vs cost does makes them better value, but to me the one thing that's put me off buying them again is the fact that the flat protection seems pretty weak compared to Maxxis. It's a very good tyre, but not the perfect tyre. If you're looking for something to run ghetto tubeless or something then the Der Kaiser might be a good option to check out, but since I can't be arsed with that stuff anymore, I'm going to save myself some money on tubes and go back to Minions.
First impression - the bead seats properly and easily (rims are Mavic 823s) when you install it, definitely easier than the Schwalbe beads to get to seat properly and probably equivalent or slightly easier than Maxxis. The compound feels super soft, but has a weird kind of texture, almost feels a tiny bit greasy to the touch. The tread pattern didn't seem particularly inspired one way or another except insofar as having similarities to a Highroller but with longer (lengthways around the tyre) centre knobs that turned out to be a lot more resistant to tearing off than Highrollers typically are. Don't recommend riding without goggles on if you have one of these as a front tyre, as the compound is so soft it picks up a LOT of gravel and whatnot and flicks it up in your face. The 2.5 Der Kaiser is bigger than a 2.5 Maxxis (mostly due to the fact that Maxxis tyres are undersized for their nominal size compared to all the other brands), maybe closer to a 2.7 Minion. I don't know what the weight is, nor do I really care, seems about the same as most other DH tyres as far as I can tell.
I put these tyres on (front and rear) a month ago, have probably logged about 20 days on them since then. The front one is pretty much done, the rear one is completely toast and has been for a few days now - I'm that guy who skids and puts braking bumps in trails, sorry! Grip-wise, they seem fairly equivalent to a Minion 40a in most situations, the notable exception being dusty rock faces where they scared me a couple of times, but in fairness dusty rocks are always fairly slippery. In the wet I thought they were reasonably good but when they did slide out, they seemed to do it a bit more suddenly and with a bit less feedback than Schwalbe/Maxxis stuff.
I did find them a little bit less predictable than a Minion on the rear in pretty well all situations; up until the point where the wear was quite significant, they tended to either grip or slide with relatively little slow/controllable slippage in between. However, this was just my impression and not a characteristic that I thought was extreme or even particularly significant. Some people might find the opposite on their own trails, it certainly wasn't a dealbreaker to me anyway. Actual outright grip was up there with pretty much anything else in most conditions. One guy I know who ran them for a while said he thought they were pretty slippery in the wet, but I didn't find em much if any worse than anything else.
Longevity of the tyres was good I thought, I am fortunate enough to be able to ride a lot and I go through tyres very quickly, but these have lasted me longer than anything else I've owned except 60a Minions. Given how soft the compound is, that's fairly impressive. They stayed looking brand new for a surprisingly long time but when they did begin to show their age they did it fairly suddenly - knobs went from still having well defined square edges to having big tears in them very quickly.
What was not so impressive was the flat resistance - despite having snakeskin sidewalls or whatever they call it, they definitely are not as bombproof as Maxxis sidewalls. I've had 3 or 4 rear flats in the past month (vs that many in 5 years with Maxxis), even though I always keep tyre pressures pretty high, and even had a front flat at high speed that caused a crash mid race-run (vs one front flat with Maxxis ever, that was caused BY a crash!). I get the impression from the feel of the tyre casing that the anti-pinch inserts or whatever don't go high enough up the sidewall of the tyre, but I'm not a tyre designer and I could be wrong on that.
The long and the short of it - outright grip is good in most situations, wear rate is very good given the grip/softness of the rubber, if the price is comparable to Maxxis then lifespan vs cost does makes them better value, but to me the one thing that's put me off buying them again is the fact that the flat protection seems pretty weak compared to Maxxis. It's a very good tyre, but not the perfect tyre. If you're looking for something to run ghetto tubeless or something then the Der Kaiser might be a good option to check out, but since I can't be arsed with that stuff anymore, I'm going to save myself some money on tubes and go back to Minions.
