[QUOTE="nbomar, post:
While I understand what your saying it is somewhat true but somewhat not. If your theory were accurate we could all run racing slicks and have a lot more contact patch.
Lol i knew someone were going to say this. But you kind of drive the point home. Why do they run slicks in nascar? Becuase they are running on a very smooth, very dry surface. They have the ultimate tire to surface contact.
Add rain to that surface and you need sipeing (however the f that is spelled) to carry away the rain water
Add mud and you need really deep sipeing to get past the mud to a hard surface to gain traction.
And so on etc etc.
SO, We want a tire to work in a variety of surface environments. More specifically you (BWAF) are targeting rocks and dirt and not really deep mud.
Which leads to bomars next point...
Your tires definitely don’t flex and contour the rocks like the atv tires do,
In an ideal world....key word ideal.... we would have the perfect tire compound to flex and wrap around the objects we are driving over. Rocks are typically rough, the better a tire can flex/ adapt/ wrap to the surface, the more tread contact you will have and more traction. Having tires with lugs instead of racing slicks gives the tire more ability to accomplish this task of conforming to the surface and in turn gives more traction. This is why a strictly winter tire has a lot of sipeing. It conforms to all the snow and ice crystals for better traction.
BWAF you and I have a tire that is stiffer than the average atv tire and they don't flex as much. Run them at 8psi they will flex a fair amount but still not as well as an atv tire. So since the contact patch is small and has limited flexibility, cutting out big pieces of lug is a bad idea....AS this pertains to rocks and trails...which is what you were asking.....Mud is a different story.
but I can say I was thoroughly impressed with the handling characteristics on the gravel and blacktop. Not even the same machine as mine.
Thanks Bomar you're a gentleman and a scholar.
You do need some rubber (ie contact patch) but you also need section that are cut out to hopefully grab rocks, dirt, etc.
If you want to do some cutting, some small, very shallow grooves wouldn't be a terrible idea. Much like the outer lugs of the tire on the left in Leathernecks pic. Then you're still leaving plenty of rubber for traction. if you cut the middle of the lug out all together it's not going to achieve what you're looking for.
The rubber compound and PSI of the tire also play a major role in this as well...
Stock 
1st option 
2nd option. Looking for some feed back 
