April 2001 -- "Kumho? What are those?" Said a scrappy old man as he shuffled out of the liquor store with a sour look on his face. "I've yet to get wind of that one. It's a new one on me," he continued on toward his clapped-out Chrysler Town and Country -- with a balding passenger front nonetheless.

Because of their soft rubber compound, the Kumho Venture MTs hugged the washboard roads quite well at speed -- even at 30 psi. Though when we dropped down into cruise mode, we also dropped down the tire pressure to 20 psi. The gripped much better, but sidewall flex became a concern.

I explained: It's a new tire out on the market from a manufacturer who has successfully played its hand in rally racing as well as various forms of asphalt racing, including rally cross.

If you remember the General Grabber, then you'll recall that the design is very similar to the modern day Kumho Venture M/T. How did this happen? Well, the same man who designed the then popular General Grabber, hopped on board with Kumho and redesigned the tire that made its mark in desert off road racing back in the '80s.

At first glance the Kumho Venture M/T is an all-around mud-type tire. Granted, it is likely not to be the mudder that you'll find slingin' sludge at the competition mud bogs, but you may find it racing wide open down the Baja Peninsula on a race vehicle. The tire has already proven itself to that extreme.

For the average guy and his rig, it's a versatile and even comfortable shoe to wear for the road and off.

While on our CJ, the Ventures were subjected to a variety of terrain. We attempted several times to puncture the sidewalls and the main carcass but have yet to be successful.

On The Road

The Kumho Ventures M/Ts have highway manners similar to a Monk sworn to silence. Cranked up to 32 psi for the 70-mile stretches of asphalt we've encountered on recent road trips, the Ventures rendered a tranquil and mesmerizing hum. For a mud tire, that's a good thing.

The secret to the silence is the strategically placed lugs. The inner lugs are tightly woven together for a smooth highway ride. This allows for an on-road ride which faintly mimics a street tire. For a mudder, the Ventures were quite impressive with their on-road manners.

The gummy rubber compound serves as a sure-grip adhesive on the road, but the two-ply sidewall flex gives a bit more than sway than desired in the high-speed turns. Then again, when your getting to where you can feel such flex, you're best off trading in your Jeep for a Mustang Cobra. Either that, or pump up the tire pressure to 36 psi in order to handle the slalom course of the mountain roads.

On The Rocks

This flex is not at all bad, especially when you're rock crawling the canyons in low gear. On this surface, the sidewall flex was more than welcomed for at least one good reason. The Venture hugged the rock walls better than a billy goat.

In each situation, we tested the tire at a variety of pressures. The lowest we got the Kumho down to was 8 psi. For as soft as the sidewalls are, this was much too low for most any terrain. Slow going on the rocks we found a comfortable pressure to be at about 12 psi.

There were several times where I thought the combination of sand and boulders would send the Jeep sliding off of the face, but the saving grace here was the line of lugs which wrap around the tire's outer circumference and the soft rubber compound it is made of.

Although a few sipes would have helped in this particular effort, the Ventures still held up. Besides, when you began siping a tire, you began to loose the structural integrity of the lugs and usually end up loosing the lugs themselves in extreme conditions high-rpm conditions.

Back to the sidewalls. They do seem a bit weak. But, they did not puncture. We ran the Ventures between 5-15 psi on the rocks, depending on the sticky situation we got our selves into. Digging down into the 5 psi range, we saw the sidewalls conform to a near-parallel pinch. The 5 psi range was a bit too low in any circumstance. For the rocks we encountered in Johnson Valley, California and elsewhere, 10-12 psi seemed to work best.

Washboard Roads

Washboard roads can be a love-hate relationship for a tire and its traction. On a Jeep, high-speed running is not too common. But, we got the speeds up to a nearly unsafe scream. On the corners, the tires bit the corners in the front and couldn't make up their mind what they wanted to do in the rear, bite or slide.

More horsepower! That's how we got the tire to rally slide around the turns at 30 psi. But for cruising purposes, we aired the Ventures down to a happy 20-psi. They worked well. Forward traction and braking worked better than if we were riding on a sticky set of gummy bears. Though, at 20 psi, we thought twice about power sliding around the corners. A tire rolling off the bead is not our idea of fun.

When we first hit this rock, we hit it at about 30 mph with 20 pounds of pressure in the tire. The tire soaked-up the abuse of the rock without a doubt, but the rim did acquire a new ding.

In The Snow

Snow in Las Vegas? Sure there is. In the higher elevations, when the dead of winter is upon us, it gets nearly too cold to be carousing around in an open Jeep. With snow flurries and a 20 mph wind, it wasn't cold enough to keep us from testing.

In the snow, the tight center section of the tire allowed the Jeep to float when aired down to 16 psi. On occasion, the aggressive outer lugs dug a bit, causing the Jeep to sink slightly deeper into the five-foot base than we would have liked to. But on the other hand, the outer lugs gave us the lateral stability in the ice-up snow we encountered.

On the iced-up asphalt, the Ventures handled better than most mudders we've driven upon but not better than most all terrains. They left a lot to be desired. But then again, we didn't insert the snow studs, the virtual ice picks that claw their way through iced-up roads.

The studs slide right into the slots which strategically located on the outer lugs of the tires. Why didn't we try them? Well, this is Vegas. Snow is more or less a hit and miss deal that even the most avid gambler won't bet on.

This is how the tire sits at 20 psi. Although we're not a huge fan of white walls, the tires did attract the attention and later on questions of people who have never heard of the tire. From the horse's mouth, "That's a pretty good-looking tire. How does she work?"

In The Mud

Well, we didn't encounter any Wisconsin mud, but we did hit our fair share of the semi-gooey sludge available in only Nevada silt beds which have been deluged with rain for four days straight.

On my way home from the office one night, I encountered a major accident on one of the only asphalt roads home. Cars were lined up for a good half mile. I, always looking for newer untamed long ways home, veered off into a wash and floated down the one-foot deep running water toward a favorite silt bed where I have crashed my motorcycle a handful of times. No problem yet. The tires work well as flotation devices.

It was just after I steered the Jeep out of the wash that a problem became apparent. The sloppy silt.

The center lugs caked-up so as to imitate a rolling set of glazed doughnuts. Traction became slim as I slid my way into a few deep ruts. I was going easy on the throttle with a few quick blips to clean the lugs, all the while being careful not to dig a grave beneath hard upper crust of the silt bed. The outer lugs spit out the sludge, but the inners were rather reluctant. At about this point in time, I was making little progress. Plan "B" was in order.

Having an excellent set of boots on, I decided to slip into the sludge and air down the rolling doughnuts to 12 psi. This is about the only thing that saved me from a two-mile walk home.

After rocking the Jeep forward and backward a few times, I built up enough momentum to float over the ruts and out of the predicament. Airing down allowed the rigid and self-cleaning outer lugs to do their job, biting their way out of the ruts.

Here's a close up of the tire mounted on the rock we hit at speed. As you can see here at 20 psi, the sidewall folds considerably. Serious rock-crawling required more pounds of pressure than other tires we've tested in the past. But then again, these seemed to grip better than most as well.

Deep Sand

Deep sand is a much better surface to traverse than is deep s. . . Well, never mind that. The light weight of the Jeep allows just about any off road tire to fair well in deep sand. The Ventures did a respectable job of floating their way up and down many deep and steep sand washes in their life on our test vehicle.

One thing of note: the Ventures seemed to handle much better at about 18 psi than they did at 10 or 30 psi. The theory behind this is: This is just about where the tire's sweet spot is, the pressure where it is most useful in floating and gaining traction.

When the pressure on the tire is too low, it seems to use the more aggressive outer lugs to dig in. When the pressure is too high, it seems to act more like a ten speed tire (exaggeration). Either way, we got around in the sand quite well in two-wheel drive and an open diff.

Sticks, Sharp Stones and Cactus

The Kumho Venture M/T has a soft rubber compound which does it justice. But, its sidewalls and carcass are equally as soft. We did our best to put gouge in the sidewall, whether it be sticks, sharp stones or cactus, but we did not succeed. That's not to say we won't. It's just to say: over the two months that we've had the tires mounted on our Jeep, the skin of the tire has yet to give up the ghost.

Time and many more miles will tell how well the Kumho Ventures will hold up. We're out in the dirt no less than four times a week logging miles on the tires. So far, we've logged on just over 5,000 miles. The Jeep's just about ready for its second oil change. The tires are ready for the next trail trip, and we'll keep you posted on how they hold up.