I'm hold in my hands the new Conti MountainKing Supersonic 2.2. He is light. The digital scale stays at 470 grams. Of course, I immediately rigged it to my bike and was off to home training: white rock and pivot bearings in the Oden Forest by Heidelberg. I felt a great sense of handling through the roundness of the tire on the first few feet of asphalt.

Then we were off through the "Black Chili Compound" and flew towards the first hill with low rolling resistance. I think I'm even saving gas… Only the lactate concentration in my legs limited my forward thrust on the asphalt and forest trail uphills.
The following downhill took me down split forest trails and a trial riddled with rocks, at full speed. I let my Hardtail run during the trial with an agile, almost nervous front wheel. My traction was awesome. After the Neckar bridge came the second hill: the Königstuhl ("king's seat"). I took the "sled slope", a steep gravel path, up it..
The MountainKing displayed full traction. The back wheel didn't spin out until I shifted my weight too far over the handlebars, when riding out-of-saddle. On the final descent, I had whizzing over the forest trails, rooty passages, through the arboretum and the serpentine trails totally in the flow... Once I arrived in the Old Town of Heidelberg, I granted myself a maroc at the Sylvie-Bar... Bring on the next MTB marathon!!!

My conclusion: the MountainKing deserves its name, pics from the SIGMA SPORT Bike Marathon in Neustadt on August 12th 2007 with the Conti MountainKing....

Ubi Blutsventje, the racing reporter