Pirelli tore up its entire gravity tire lineup and started over. On September 22, 2026, Pirelli launched a completely redesigned Scorpion Gravity range — three new tread patterns, four rebuilt casings, and a compound system borrowed straight from its Formula 1 program. It’s the first ground-up overhaul of Pirelli’s gravity tires in years, not a color refresh or a single new SKU bolted onto the old range.

We’ve covered Maxxis, Schwalbe, and Continental’s 2026 tire launches on this site. Pirelli? Never. That’s not an oversight so much as a reflection of where the brand sits in most North American riders’ heads — a car tire company that also makes bike tires, somewhere behind the big three. A full relaunch with a three-time DH World Champion’s name attached is a good reason to stop ignoring it.

Quick Take

What changed	Entire Scorpion Gravity lineup replaced with 3 new tread patterns
New treads	Black Sting, Emperor, Red Claw — each named for a scorpion species matched to terrain
Casings	ProWALL, HardWALL, DualWALL, DH+ WALL — all now eMTB-rated
Compounds	Medium, Soft, Supersoft (F1-derived naming and color coding)
Sizes	27.5” and 29”, 2.4”–2.5” widths
Weight range	700g to 1,500g+ depending on casing
Price	$78–$117
Developed with	Fabien Barel, 3x Downhill World Champion
Best for	Riders who cross-shop Assegai, Magic Mary, or Kryptotal and want a fourth option worth taking seriously
Skip if	You want multi-season wear data before you spend $100+ on a front tire

What Are Pirelli’s Three New Scorpion Gravity Tread Patterns?

Pirelli replaced its old Race-series naming (Race M, Race T, and friends) with three tread patterns, each named after a scorpion species chosen to match the terrain it’s built for. That’s a gimmick on the surface. It’s also, per Bikerumor’s launch coverage, a genuinely different knob layout on all three, not a rename of the old pattern under new packaging.

1. Black Sting — the fast-rolling option, tight-packed center knobs for hardpack and dry, compact terrain. This is your climbing-efficiency front tire or your everyday rear.
2. Emperor — the all-rounder, built on the bones of the old Race M pattern but reworked for mixed and changing conditions. Pirelli’s own pairing suggestion: Emperor front with Black Sting rear for efficiency, or Emperor front with Red Claw rear for more bite.
3. Red Claw — the grip tire, descended from the old Race T pattern, with tall, widely spaced knobs for loose-over-hard, dusty, off-camber terrain. This is your wet-season front tire, full stop.

Sound familiar? It should. Three tiers running fast-to-grippy is the same shape as Maxxis running Dissector to Assegai, or Schwalbe running Albert to Magic Mary. Pirelli isn’t reinventing the category structure. It’s finally building a complete one.

Four Casings, All Now eMTB-Rated

This is the part of the relaunch that actually matters more than the tread names. Pirelli’s four casings — ProWALL, HardWALL, DualWALL, and DH+ WALL — now all carry eMTB ratings, according to Singletracks’ breakdown of the range. That means the same casing lineup now covers acoustic trail bikes through full-power e-MTBs, instead of forcing e-bike riders into a separate, heavier sub-range.

Casing	Weight	Built For
ProWALL	~700–900g	Lightest option, climbing efficiency, sidewall protection without the tax
HardWALL	~900–1,100g	Added reinforcement for everyday trail and light enduro use
DualWALL	~1,100–1,300g	Dual-ply, built for enduro racing, bike parks, and freeride abuse
DH+ WALL	1,300g–1,500g+	Full downhill casing, reinforced sidewall and bead for race-day punishment

For e-bike riders, the eMTB rating across the whole range is the actual news here — not the scorpion names. If you’ve read our eMTB motor comparison, you already know the extra weight and torque of a full-power e-bike chews through tires that weren’t built for it. Pirelli closing that gap on every casing, not just the DH+ option, is the kind of decision that shows up in warranty claims more than marketing copy.

The F1-Inspired Compound System

Three compounds — Medium, Soft, and Supersoft — color-coded and named the same way Pirelli names its Formula 1 tire compounds. Supersoft is the grip-first option, purple sidewall marking, recommended for the front. Soft splits the difference. Medium is the durability and rolling-speed pick for the rear or for drier terrain.

If you’re coming from Maxxis, the translation is rough but usable: Supersoft plays the role MaxxGrip plays, Medium sits closer to MaxxTerra. It’s not a perfect one-to-one — no compound system ever translates cleanly across brands — but it’s close enough to get you in the right ballpark while you figure out Pirelli’s own logic.

Sizes and Pricing

The new range spans 27.5” and 29”, in 2.4”–2.5” widths. That’s narrower than some of the wide-format gravity tires other brands have been pushing lately — no 2.6” option here, at least not yet. Pricing runs $78 to $117 depending on casing and compound, which puts the top end of the range roughly in line with a Schwalbe Magic Mary radial and a step above a standard Maxxis Assegai, which typically runs closer to $90.

That’s not a budget play. Pirelli is pricing itself as a premium option from day one, betting the Barel name and the F1 halo effect are worth the premium to riders who’d otherwise default to Maxxis without a second thought.

Fabien Barel’s Fingerprints Are All Over This

Pirelli brought in three-time Downhill World Champion Fabien Barel for development input on the new range, and unlike a lot of athlete-endorsement tire launches, the involvement reads as more than a name on a box. BikeRadar’s coverage quotes Barel saying the new tires deliver “the kind of confidence you notice within the first few turns,” and ties the development explicitly to Pirelli’s motorsport background — Formula 1, MotoGP, motocross — being applied to compound and casing work for the first time on this scale.

I’d normally discount that kind of quote as launch-copy filler. Athletes say nice things about products with their names on them; that’s the job. But Pirelli’s F1 tire program is real institutional knowledge, not a marketing department invention, and compound science does transfer across categories more than tread geometry does. Whether it shows up as a measurable grip advantage on an actual trail is a different question, and not one this launch week answers.

Pirelli vs. Assegai, Magic Mary, and Kryptotal: The Real Cross-Shop

Here’s the honest positioning. Pirelli isn’t trying to undercut anyone on price, and it isn’t claiming to reinvent tread geometry. It’s trying to earn a seat at a table that’s had three players — Maxxis, Schwalbe, and increasingly Continental — for a long time.

	Pirelli Red Claw (Supersoft)	Maxxis Assegai (MaxxGrip)	Schwalbe Magic Mary (standard)
Positioning	New grip-focused front, loose/off-camber	Default aggressive front tire	Wet/loose grip specialist
Price	$78–$117 depending on casing	~$90	Comparable to Assegai
Track record	Days old	Years, proven at scale	Years, proven at scale
Development story	F1-derived compounds, Barel input	Decades of gravity racing pedigree	Deep wet-weather reputation
eMTB rating	All four casings	Casing-dependent	Casing-dependent

The Assegai’s advantage isn’t a mystery: it’s the default because it’s been the default for years, and our own testing across two seasons backs up why riders keep reaching for it. Pirelli isn’t going to out-argue that track record with a press release. What it can offer, on paper, is a genuinely new casing lineup with eMTB coverage across the board and a compound story with real racing pedigree behind it, not just marketing language borrowed from it.

The Two-Day-Old Question Marks

Pirelli’s old Scorpion tires had a mixed reputation for knob durability next to Maxxis and Schwalbe, and nothing about a fresh tread name tells you whether Black Sting, Emperor, and Red Claw actually fixed that or just look different while wearing down the same way. F1 compound science is real, but F1 tires run on smooth pavement at extreme loads, not over roots and rock gardens — the transfer to loose dirt isn’t automatic, and nobody outside Pirelli’s own test team has meaningful trail time on these yet. Then there’s distribution: early coverage out of the UK, via BikeBiz, confirms stock is already moving through European distributors, but US shop availability is murkier this week. Call your local shop before you plan a swap around these.

None of that is unusual for a two-day-old product line. What’s unusual is how much of the interesting part of this launch doesn’t depend on any of it resolving.

The Real Story Is the eMTB Rating, Not the Scorpion Names

Strip away the tread-pattern branding and Barel’s quotes, and the fact that actually changes what a rider can buy is this: for the first time, Pirelli’s entire casing range — ProWALL through DH+ WALL — carries an eMTB rating, not just the heaviest option. That’s the detail worth building a purchase decision around, more than three new species names or an F1-derived compound chart.

Here’s why that matters in practice. Riders on full-power e-bikes have historically had two bad choices: a lightweight trail casing that wasn’t built for the extra torque and folded early, or a DH casing that solved the durability problem by adding weight and rolling resistance most e-bike riders didn’t need. Pirelli closing that gap across every casing in the lineup — not just adding one heavier e-specific SKU — is a structural fix to that problem, not a marketing bullet point. If you’ve read our eMTB motor comparison, you already know how much torque a full-power motor puts through a tire that isn’t built to take it. This is the first gravity tire relaunch from a major brand to treat that as a lineup-wide requirement instead of a single reinforced model bolted onto the range as an afterthought.

That’s a testable claim, and a specific one, independent of whether the scorpion tread names turn out to be a gimmick or whether the Supersoft compound actually rivals MaxxGrip. eMTB riders shopping ProWALL versus HardWALL versus DualWALL right now can act on it today, without waiting for a single wear report.

Who This Launch Actually Serves

If you ride a full-power e-MTB and have been stuck picking between a trail casing that wears out fast and a DH casing you don’t need, the unified eMTB rating is worth pricing out directly against whatever casing you’re currently running — that’s the one part of this relaunch that changes a real buying calculation today, not in six months. Everyone else — acoustic-bike riders comparing Red Claw to an Assegai or a Magic Mary on tread and compound alone — should treat this as a tire to watch rather than one to order this week; the casing story doesn’t apply to you the same way, and the compound and wear claims still need trail miles nobody has logged yet. At $78–$117, it’s not cheap enough to gamble on if you’re already happy with your current front-rear setup.

The Bottom Line

The headline out of this launch is three new tread names and an F1-inspired compound system, and that’s the part getting the press coverage. The part that should actually move a buying decision is quieter: Pirelli is the first of the big four gravity-tire brands to rate its entire casing lineup for eMTB use instead of gatekeeping that behind one heavy SKU. Maxxis and Schwalbe still split their eMTB coverage by casing tier. For e-bike riders specifically, that’s a bigger deal than whether Red Claw beats an Assegai in a straight-line grip test — a question this launch, two days old, can’t answer yet anyway.

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Launch details, pricing, and specs sourced from Bikerumor, BikeRadar, Singletracks, and BikeBiz launch coverage, and Pirelli’s official Scorpion tire family page.