In South Africa almost every single bike shop says that these tyres are the ultimate if you ride mountain bike in SA, offering low rolling resistance, good tire life and reliability but as always there is a catch of sorts.
These tyres are fine if you ridewhat is more endurance such as Cape Epic, or races which feature mostly jeep track, however beware if the going gets rough, unfortunately these aren't the best cornering tires available, the back end can slide out with out notice as I found out while nailing the local XC track which resulted in me going down hard.
Tire life and reliability is something we expect from Maxxis and the Crossmarks are no different, I have had great life from these tires and much the same from the Larsen TT (one of my personal favourites)
On to the technical bit, in the picture below the centre line of + are great for rolling on hard pack, as I felt on the trip home, but when the shift is made off of this centre line to the side lugs is when you usually loose traction in hard cornering XC conditions.
It boils down to the correct tyre for the correct race, so maybe this review is more about the marketing behind this tyre than the tyre itself. Unfortunately the cycling shops do not enquire far enough into the riding the customer wants to do instead blindly recommend a certain tyre.
In conclusion, great tire if used by the right person in the right conditions, I wouldn't recommend them for aggressive world cup style XC (Rather go for a Larsen or a Racing Ralph) but the enduro scene these are great.
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