Product Review: Maxxis Padrone Tubeless Road Tires 700x23c

I have been an avid road cyclist and racer since 1982. I have worked as a professional bicycle mechanic, and fitting specialist since 1980. I have ridden and raced on more makes and models of clincher and tubular tires than I remember. It is remarkable how much the performance level of clincher type bicycle tires has improved since I first became addicted to cycling.

Prior to using the Padrone, my favorite clincher was the Continental GP4000s with Black Chili Compound. It still is my favorite tire for use with inner tubes.

Install the tires carefully using soft edge tire levers. Maxxis provides a pair of nylon levers in the box with your new tires. I found the provided levers a bit too weak for the job of prying the beads of these tires over and onto my Campagnolo Eurus 2-Way rims. It might be easier on some other rims. It could also prove to be an even more challenging. I find that Pedros tire levers are perfect for the job. Install the tires "dry", that is without any sealant. Inflate them to make certain that they are correctly seated to your rims. You might actually need an air compressor in order to seat the tires. I was able to seat mine into some Campy Eurus Two-Way rims using a Pedro's floor pump. Once the tires are fully seated, deflate them, install sealant, then re-inflate. I do not recommend the use of Stans sealant for these particular tires. There is some ingredient of that sealant that I believe can cause some tires to delaminate. That would be bad. I recommend using a less caustic sealant such as Caffelatex, Hutchinson Protect Air Max, Specialized Airlock, or Orange Seal.

Choose one, and use the recommended dosage. In my experience, correct dosing is important no matter what your choice of tire sealant may be.

I used Caffelatex. I purchased it in a bottle, and used syringe type injector to slowly push the prescribed dose of sealant into each tire.

October of 2013, I rode across most of Texas with this tire/sealant/wheel combination. The eight day journey took a small group of us from Brackettville to Crocket, TX. We traversed chipseal, smooth tarmac, and even dirt roads along the way, gained some fitness, and renewed affection for the beauty of the Texas hill country. I experienced no problems whatsoever with the Padrones. No leaks, and no punctures. I am 177.8cm, or 5'10" tall, weigh 73.4 Kg, or 162 lbs, and rode with tire pressure at 5.8 bar or about 85psi.

These tires apparently roll just as fast as my GP4000s do at 6.9 bar or about 100 psi. With the Padrones, I feel no increase or decrease in rolling resistance. Grip is phenomenal on both dry and wet roads. I did get to test this extensively as two days of our Texas ride were ridden in the rain. One day there was a foggy drizzle that soaked everything but washed nothing away from the road surface, the other brought heavy rain for the duration of that day's ride. Ride quality is superb. These tires definitely help to take the edge off when cruising across chip seal pave'. I'm talking about the kind of chip seal that looks and feels as if marbles were used for pavement.

I realize that some users have had issues with the Maxxis Padrone, but based upon my experience working in the bicycle industry, I can safely say here that every tire maker will spit out a dud from time to time. I do not believe that there is such a thing as a tire maker who has never manufactured a defective tire. According to Maxxis, Quality Assurance experts actually x-ray each Padrone prior to packaging in an effort to search for defects, and prevent bad tires from reaching the store shelves. Nonetheless, a defect can still get by once in a while, and a tire can still be damaged during installation by a mechanic with little or no experience in the handling of tubeless tires and rims.  Which brings me to one more point of relevance.  Although many folks have installed tubeless tires onto non-tubeless rims, I do not recommend doing so.  Use tubeless rims for tubeless tires.  If your rim beads are not designed specifically for tubeless tires, and you convert to tubeless, you ought to be prepared to accept the possibility that the tires might fail catastrophically as a result of improper installation or usage.  The same applies to using within your tires any sealant that contains any form of caustic agent.  I do not have a laboratory full of testing equipment at my disposal, yet I believe that these are the finest road clinchers I have used.