| Sand Sharks:
With a flip of a coin we
started out with the cheaper of the two tires, the GBC Sand
Sharks. We installed them on the 96 Banshee first. Our testers
started out with some straight line runs on a level loose sand
surface. We were quite impressed with the hook up of
these tires. They provided good bite and floated on top of the
sand quite well. We then moved on to some small dunes to test
their turning ability. Once again we were quite impressed with
the performance of the Sand Sharks. The V-Blade paddle design performs
quite well for our riding style. Once into the powerband the
back end of our Banshee was agile and gave us the ability to
slide out of turns creating some nice rooster tails. We were
able to perform doughnut maneuvers along the sides of the
dunes. These types of maneuvers will usually draw a crowd of
on lookers, especially when you pull the front wheels off the
ground at the top part of the arc. Lastly we found some
small steep hills and shot up these with ease.
We next installed the Sharks
on our Warrior and began putting them through the paces. We
achieved some good results with our 350cc 4 stroke. Though
there is some bog down with using paddles on a mid-sized four
stroke, the Warrior was able to chug through this with its
better torque curve. The Sand Sharks, in our opinion,
are better suited for the Warrior.
Sand Skate ΙΙ:
We decided to start with our
Warrior first on the Sand Skates. The Sand Skates do seem to
have more bite than the Sand Sharks. The Sand Skates paddle
has what seems to have more scooping ability and provide
better traction overall than the Sand Shark. This does come
with a price. Our Warrior had a tendency to bog more with the
Skates than with the Sharks. We were impressed with our
straight line runs once we got out of the hole. We moved on to
the small dunes. The Skates once again provide excellent
traction when buzzing along the dunes. We did have a tendency
to dig in more often with the Skates at low speeds but this is
expected from any paddle tire. The key is the balance between
speed and wheel spin. The hill shoots were next. Starting from
a dead stop we needed to build speed quickly to shoot up the
hills. There is no Half-Clutching with a 4 stroke. The Sand
Skates seem a bit too much for the Warrior and we come out of
the hole a little slow.
On to the Banshee! We bolted
the Skates up and off we went. On the Banshee we were very
impressed with the bite out of the hole on our straight line
runs. We moved on to the dunes. Once again we were very
impressed in the ability to control the Banshee while sliding
across the dunes. Last but not least the hill shoots. The
Skates once again provided great bite to get us up to speed to
concur the hills.
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