The Kraken is Hutchinson’s lightly treaded or ‘faster’ downcountry option in their tyre range.

In tandem with the slightly chunkier Hutchinson Wyrm, I’ve been running the Kraken over the course of this year, notching up 825 miles.

I chose the ‘grippier’ Wyrm and ‘faster’ Kraken combo, which felt like an obvious choice on my part. It’s a combination that seems to work well, with the Wyrm on the front and the Kraken on the rear.

It’s worth noting you can use two Krakens or two Wyrms if that is your preference. Hutchinson don’t insist one way or the other.

The tread pattern

The 750g Kraken comes with a rather subtle and low profile tread. The low profile speaks for itself, but the subtlety comes from carefully arranged tread blocks around the tyre.

I chose to put the Kraken on the rear partly because the tread pattern has distinct ‘paddles’ at 90° to the direction of travel, clearly intended for increased traction. Dimpled blocks help create a near continuous contact patch down the centre of the tyre but allow some flexibility for grip, with chunkier knobs out to the sides.

Overall, the Kraken just looked like a fast rear tyre to me! I haven’t been disappointed.

After 800 miles of hard and fast traction duties, the dimples are now almost vanished. It’s hard to detect a drop off in performance although having left the summer dust behind I would need Princess and the Pea levels of sensitivity to notice in recent softer conditions.

The performance

A couple of years ago I had a high speed stack at Bike Park Wales that I blame partly on the summer tyre I was using on the rear. At first, this thought caused me to be a little wary of the fast looking Kraken.

In reality the Kraken has been super reliable when switching from fast climbing to rapid descending. Those paddles in the tread seem to give a nice consistent level of grip when transitioning from upright to leaned over (who am I kidding here?!) but are very effective under braking.

I prefer to push the front harder than the rear, but even so the Kraken never seemed to get in the way and traction has been excellent. Coupled with a voluminous 2.4 casing, at 20-22psi the tyre has proved to be a supple but predictable performer on flow trails like Ricin Beans.

The lack of noise when riding on tarmac tells you how low profile the rubber is. Despite this, I’ve set several downhill PRs on these tyres, including some rapid times down Alfred Pennyworth and Pseudo Pig.

My riding friends may form the view that I am reasonably fast but in truth the Bird in XC mode with the Hutchinson pairing has been a pretty quick bike.

I think you can tell I like this tyre.

Any issues?

The only problem I had was picking up a two inch nail on Pseudo Pig right in the middle of the tread, resulting in a loss of air that left me riding on the rim for the last couple of hundred yards. No tyre is immune from that sort of damage.

We plugged the hole and it’s been no trouble since. Had I been using better leak free valves, we’d have been up and running even quicker. Impressively the tyre stayed on the rim, although having a Hunt rim and no steering duties to worry about probably helped matters.

Away from the trail the Hutchinson Kraken has aired up and popped onto the rim just as effectively as the Wyrm. Hutchinson really seems to have the tubeless side of things nailed and they hold air reliably.

Summary

All in all, the Kraken has been really excellent as a fast rear tyre. If you wanted to use it on the front I think I would stick to high summer rather than the late spring to early autumn window I have experienced. It sheds mud well but I can’t really comment on it’s directional attributes as a front tyre.

I plan to reinstate the Hutchinson Wyrm and Kraken combination on my Bird Aether in the springtime. I will be interested to add another 800 miles to them to see how they wear but my experience so far has been fit and forget.

About the author

Matt is one of the founding Molefathers of the Muddymoles, and is the designer and main administrator of the website.

Having ridden a 2007 Orange Five for many years then a 2016 YT Industries Jeffsy 29er, he now rocks a Bird Aether 9 and a Pace RC-627.

An early On-One Inbred still lurks in the back of the stable as a reminder of how things have moved on. You can even find him on road bikes - currently a 2019 Cannondale Topstone 105 SE, a much-used 2011 Specialized Secteur and very niche belt drive Trek District 1.

If you've ever wondered how we got into mountain biking and how the MuddyMoles started, well wonder no more.