To update my own experience:
I not only mount both Monorails and Crossmarks with my bare hands, but I now know that I can very easily inflate them with a floor pump, and don't even need Stan's to seal them. That's a miracle in my book. Although I did ride a Crossmark for about 100 miles with no Stan's (and no leaks), it'd be foolhardy to ride w/o sealant in NM,because of the high incidence of punctures, so I don't.
It seems obvious that the same thing that makes them so easy to mount is what makes them so hard to remove. The sidewalls are very sticky against the rim. It's actually very hard to break the bead on a deflated tire. On the lightly used Crossmark, it wasn't too hard to get it off with levers. On a Monorail with a few hundred miles, it was a breeze (with a lever). In each case, I had to stand on the bead to break it loose. I would consider it next to impossible to remove a brand new tire that was just mounted.
I like both tires, but prefer the Monorails. Both are very fast. We race on a lot of steep, loose stuff in NM, and they've never let me down. They might leave something to be desired on loose corners, but the drift is very controlled. No stuttering.
Some people have complained about these tires being "warped". It's because they never mounted them correctly. They must be inflated to the point where the thin lines on the sidewalls are even about the rim. In my experience, these tires need 50 psi to finish "popping". And I wouldn't even try to mount a ust tire w/o soaping the beads first.
