German brand Schwalbe’s Big Betty is marketed as a rear tyre to match its classic Magic Mary and take on the best trail tyres on the market, such as the Maxxis High Roller II. It boasts a particularly chunky tread with fairly evenly-spaced deep and wide blocks and tall side knobs with Schwalbe’s signature reinforcing rubber scaffolding to stop outwards squirming under heavy loads. Multiple casing and thicknesses are available, with the Super Trail version here being the lightest 29er model – it still weighs over 1.2kg though.

Schwalbe colour-codes its different Addix compounds – the orange band representing Soft, which is a trail and enduro formula designed to balance rolling speed and wear life against enough grip for aggressive riding, without being as draggy as a full-on downhill tyre. The Big Betty inflated perfectly first time and retained pressure throughout the test, which can’t be said for all the tyres here.

Deep central paddles deliver loads of traction when braking and accelerating

The huge tread blocks lay down a lot of rubber to really cut through soft loam or mud, and tons of braking control and bite at all angles on the steeps make this a confidence-inspiring option. Slam the anchors on and the central sharp-edged blocks basically gouge into the earth if there’s any give in the ground at all and rapidly kill speed. On hard-baked trail surfaces or armoured man-made surfaces and fire roads, there’s noticeable bobble from the toothy tread though, and the Big Betty is significantly less comfortable than some tyres when smashing over repeated hits, rocks and root webs.

Lots of Addix Soft rubber combined with the Super Trail casing doesn’t offer as much conforming or squidgy behaviour as we expected, which means the Betty feeds back quite a lot of information from the terrain. That might also explain why it’s not the best at staying connected and giving more reaction time as some of its rivals on slimy wet roots and rocks.