The Tread
The Good: The tread pattern of the Crossmark is a good one. The almost constant center ridge offers good acceleration and low rolling resistance, and the aggressive side knobs mean you're gonna stick to that turn like velcro.
The Bad: The tire cleans itself fairly well, with the exception of the center ridge- that takes a bit longer to clear out.
The Hard Stuff
The Good: In hardpack conditions this tire rules! It gives you gobs of confidence, encouraging you to go faster and faster. The tire offers decent rolling resistance, so as a result it is snappy and accelerates very well... I'd say on par with the Kenda Nevegal, perhaps even a bit better, which is pleasantly surprising considering that the Crossmark is a 600+gram tire.
The Bad: Bad? On hardpack there is nothing bad about this tire. Period.
The Wet Stuff
The Good: In wet sand, the Crossmark still offers you some traction, which is no small feat. For not being full blown mud, wet sand can pack up tires in a heartbeat, leaving you with no traction. The mud that I've encountered has packed up the center ridge, but the outer knobs got cleared and left me with some traction. I'm gonna cover pine straw in this section, as riding on pine straw can be like riding in real wet conditions. We have copious amounts of the stuff. Like every tire I've ever used, the Crossmark does lose traction on the pine straw, but it finds the solid ground beneath very fast. I've found myself tackling out of the saddle climbs on ground covered with pine straw, and there'll be moments of spinning back tires, but I always find some traction and maintain my momentum on the climb.
The Bad: Wet roots really scare me on these tires. Anything but a straight line over some and the back tire starts going in any number of directions. Now, to be fair to the Crossmark, I've not found too many tires that handled wet roots very well. These tires handle the roots best when they're aired down. If you're running normal pressure be prepared for some scary riding.
Final Thoughts
I've been very impressed so far. In dry, hardpack conditions these tires rule! Even our notorious Florida sand doesn't deter these tires, you can float across/thru it without the bike getting all squirrely on you. These tires love to go fast, and rail corners...it shows, they do both very well. They do a great job with most conditions. The bottom line is that the Crossmarks are confidence inspiring. I've found myself going faster and faster, even to the point where I go faster than the tires and bike can cope with (a turn loaded with pine straw- can you say "wipe-out"?!?).
Note: On the UST version, the amount of air pressure you use on a standard tire will offer a completely different ride. On standard tires I ran 38psi, and it offered a medium ride- not hard but not plush either. That same 38psi in the Crossmark gives a hard ride. Since I'm running a F/S bike it doesn't bother me, and I run that pressure in dry conditions. Thru pure happenstance I found that you can go quite low on the pressure and still not bottom out the tire on the rim, or offer a super squishy ride. I can easily run 22 or so psi in these tires and have no problems (which is a real bonus when its wet out).
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