GOODYEAR NEWTON MTF & MTR TIRE REVIEW

THEY’VE TAKEN A GOOD TURN

Review by Robert Johnston
Riding Photos by Matt Slocombe

Back in 2018 the Goodyear brand name returned to the cycling world, with their name licensed by Rubber Kinetics. Their initial Newton and Newton ST tires were met with a mixed reception, with some key areas requiring improvement to challenge the best of them. For 2022 Goodyear released a new pairing of Newton tires – the MTF and MTR – with a moto-inspired design that features significant differences between each tire to handle the different demands at each end of a mountain bike. We’ve been putting a pair of their Enduro casing tires to the test for the last few months across Europe, and now that they are worn out, it’s time for us to share our findings.

THE LAB

For their new generation of Newton tires, Goodyear employed a front and rear-specific design to the MTF and MTR accordingly, taking inspiration from the motocross world and separating each tire into their specific needs on a mountain bike, with very different tread patterns and casing profiles. Both of the Goodyear Newton tires are offered in the choice of three versions with tailored casing and rubber options that are rather self explanatory: Trail, Enduro and Downhill.

The Trail tires receive the lightest weight casing – a singular 60TPI layer with a full bead-to-bead armor to offer cut and puncture protection. The Enduro tires get a dual-ply 120TPI casing, with a butyl insert on the sidewalls to offer abrasion resistance and improve sidewall support. This 120TPI casing offers a more supple ride than a dual-60TPI alternative, allowing the Enduro tire to roll faster. The Downhill tires on the other hand are designed for no-compromise durability, so utilize two layers of 60TPI casing material, with a slightly larger butyl sidewall insert than the Enduro casing.

The Trail tires are equipped with the Trail 2 compound featuring 60a rubber at the base of the knobs and 50a rubber on the outside. The MTF Enduro and Downhill tires feature the Grip3S rubber compound – a front-specific offering with a 60a base, 40a side knobs and 42a center knobs. The MTR Enduro and Downhill receive the slightly harder wearing and faster rolling Grip3 compound, with a 60a base, 40a side knobs and 50a center knobs.

The MTF features a more rounded profile than many, which Goodyear claims to offer improved damping and an elongated contact patch to give improved straight line control and a greater contact patch for braking. With an open tread pattern designed to give improved mud clearing including very widely spaced side knobs, the MTF should offer great mixed-terrain performance. The MTR has a more square profile, which Goodyear claims to improve the traction when pedaling and making the transition to the side knobs when initiating a turn. The knobs are significantly more tightly packed, but feature less ramping since the majority of the contact is on the top of the knobs when rolling.

The Newton MTF is offered in 2.5” width only in 27.5” or 29”, whereas the MTR sees a 2.4” option for both wheelsizes or a 2.6” for 27.5” only. With a reduced variety of options compared to some, Goodyear intends riders to have a simple time selecting the best tire combination for their needs. The pricing is structured by their casing, with the Trail casing tires retailing for £54/$70, the Enduro for £60/$80, and the Downhill £64/$85.

THE DIRT

From the First Ride Review in Tuscany, Italy, I was impressed by the purposeful looks of the new Goodyear tires. When my long-term test set arrived, I stuck them onto the scales right away, with the Enduro casing MTF tipping the scales at a burly 1406g for its 29×25” size, and the MTR sitting at 1245g for the 29×2.4” size. Across a variety of rims, the Goodyears have proved to be straight forward to fit, with a bit of muscle as is usually the case these days. The sidewalls are stiff and could occasionally try to push out and off the rim when fitting, but they were no tighter to go on than your typical burly tire. This tendency to push out slightly meant they aired up with a standard track pump without a hitch. Once mounted to a pair of 30mm rims, the different profile of the two tires was immediately apparent, with the MTF taking a heavily rounded shape and the MTR sitting squarer than most. They measured at 2.52” and 2.39” at their widest points respectively on these 30mm rims.

The first ride at my go-to starting pressures for a burly tire pairing of 26/28 PSI front/rear immediately shone a light on the stiffness of the casings, with a decidedly wooden trail feel and some severe deflection on roots and rocks. Slowly dropping the pressures to obtain the desired trail compliance, I landed on pressures of 2-3 PSI lower than a Double Down or Super Trail, or roughly the same as a Super Gravity tire pairing to obtain a similar trail feel. Down at 23PSI on the front and 26PSI out back, there was still ample support for all but the most g-intensive alpine bike park runs, with reasonable compliance to the trail. In the dry conditions in the alps, I bumped these pressures back up 2PSI on each end, purely to offer that extra bit of support for those tire-ripping berms that are so prevalent, and the detriment to the control on rooty off-pistes was immediately apparent.

Though the weights certainly prevent the Goodyear Enduro tires from spinning up as quick as a trail rider may demand, once up to speed I was surprised by their rolling speed, and for long fireroad stints that you often find in Enduro liaisons the weight is less of a problem. Both when climbing and descending, their rolling speed contrasted their burly and slow rolling looks and they were notably quicker than a comparable Maxxis Assegai Maxxgrip/DHR2 MaxxTerra or Schwalbe Magic Mary/Big Betty soft pairing.

For the majority of the test, the knobs had a reasonable level of support, which paired up with that sturdy carcass to produce a tire that was reassuring and solid through hard compressions and when ripping supportive corners hard. The flipside of this was a lack of “stick” in certain situations, with some especially loose feeling moments in dry and dusty conditions where the tires would only find real purchase once tipped over to their limits on the side knobs, especially on the front end with its rounded profile. This was fun, and certainly acceptably grippy when fully committed and tipped in, but made for some sketchy moments when you weren’t actively pushing on the tires.

Braking performance was solid in harder pack terrain, offering a confident and stable platform to scrub off speed quickly, but in looser dry conditions there was a notable lack of stability when  braking leant over, with the tendency for the tires to step out quicker than expected until they’d catch on the side knobs, often after you’ve dropped a foot anchor to prevent the impending doom. Traction when climbing was solid out back, with plenty of edges to latch on to wetter soils, arguably exceeding the descending performance when things were a bit slick. Of course, they lacked the all-out dig-in of a wetter condition tire when things were particularly unfavorable.

In softer loamier soils, the Newtons really came alive. Their ability to dig in and tear up the brown pow was exceptional, and the MTF cleared in stickier and wetter conditions better than expected too. The MTR on the other hand would pack up quite quickly once mud hit a certain sticky consistency. The MTR felt to perform relatively well through slick root and rock, but the more pronounced knobs of the MTF had a greater tendency to deflect than the likes of the Assegai, reducing confidence in the Goodyears in the notoriously rooty Tweed Valley after a typical sprinkling of Scottish rain. Similarly their nob heights are not quite long enough to dig into sloppy mud as well as the Magic Mary or a more wet-focused offering. Designed as an all-rounder tire, this can be forgiven somewhat, but it’s worth noting.

Over the initial months and countless miles the wear rates appeared to be very impressive, however they hit a point where they began to crumble and fell off quite rapidly. This was certainly after most tires would have been showing their age, but once they hit this point it didn’t take long for the braking edges to disappear entirely from the rear tire. Braking traction out back faltered unsurprisingly once the edges disappeared, leaving the front wheel to handle the stopping duties and making the loose conditions downright sketchy. After a couple of weeks of Alps turn slicing, there came a point where the cornering knobs had lost their support completely at the back too, with the front following suit shortly after. Once this occurred, the predictability in harder packed conditions that was so favorable disappeared quickly.

The Wolf’s Last Word

At £60 an end, the Goodyears undercut some of the big guns without compromising performance overall, though they have an interesting mix of characters that makes them suitable for the most middling of conditions and begin to struggle somewhat on either side. They stood up to the test of time fairly well for their grip offering, but once they started to go, they dropped off quickly. Thankfully, an impressively tough construction let them hit this worn-out stage without encountering other issues before.

Price: £60/$80 (Enduro casing)
Website: Goodyearbike.com