When things get wet, wild, rooty and rough, Specialized's new Hillbilly tire is designed to bring back control
Calling all mud lovers! If you like your terrain steep, slippery, mucky, wet, loose and natural, then Specialized have a tyre that’s right up your trail. The new Specialized Hillbilly is a gravity-focussed tyre designed for wet and loose conditions, focussed on bringing back traction, control and confidence. And we’ll be testing one soon to see if it’s good enough to make it into our guide to the best mountain bike mud tyres.
The Specialized Hillbilly features deep centre knobs combined with high-volume shoulder blocks which are designed to give bite in loose soil. Block-in-block transition knobs offer structural reinforcement for traction and stability.
The tyre is constructed from Specialized’s own Sticky Fast T9 rubber compound. This, Specialized claims, offers great traction in greasy conditions and also adds damping to reduce tyre bounce and deflection.
Hillbilly is available in GRID Trail and GRID Gravity casing options, the former being suitable for aggressive trail riding in the mud while the GRID Gravity is a two-ply tyre for extreme conditions and hard enduro, downhill and bike park riding with plenty of strength and stability for hard cornering and jumping.
The Hillbilly sits at the maximum traction end of Specialized’s tyre range, above the Cannibal and the Slaughter.
Specialized Hillbilly tyre range
Specialized Hillbilly GRID Trail 27.5
- Size: 27.5 x 2.4
- Recommended PSI range: 20-40
- Approximate weight: 985g
- Price: £37.50 / $70
Specialized Hillbilly GRID Trail 29
- Size: 29 x 2.4
- Recommended PSI range: 25-50
- Approximate weight: 1070g
- Price: £37.50 / $70
Specialized Hillbilly GRID Gravity 27.5
- Size: 27.5 x 2.4
- Recommended PSI range: 20-40
- Approximate weight: 1240g
- Price: £50 / $75
Specialized Hillbilly GRID Gravity 29
- Size: 29 x 2.4
- Recommended PSI range: 25-50
- Approximate weight: 1340g
- Price: £50 / $75