Schwalbe Big Apple or Marathon Supreme

[rickangus]

Interesting, and I didn't know that which might explain why they haven't been mentioned to date. And I have had a few punctures with them.

I once had a pair of Marathon Plus which were great but on the heavy side; initially I had loads of punctures - but that was because I was using rubbish rim tape. Once that problem was fixed no punctures in 2000 miles until my friend bought them off me.

[willem jongman]

Avoiding punctures i snice, but I would not normally want to suffer Marathon Plus tyres for it. On my commuter bike I find ordinary Marathon's good enough and on my tourer I often use tyres that are faster again, such as Big Apples or yet faster Panaracer Pasela's. It really pays to match tyres to your needs
Wilem

[bikiesteve]

One of my Marathon Supreme 26x1.6 failed in the first few hundred km of use during our tour of Sri Lanka. The failure I had was only on one side of one tire on the rear, and looked identical to other photos I've seen including in this thread. I initially suspected the rim but it showed no damage, and running the undamaged tire on that same rim for the rest of the tour didn't show any abnormal wear.

Previous failure reports on this tire mentioned that a ceramic compound added to the rubber for puncture resistance had been the culprit in earlier failures, as it prevented sufficient flex in the sidewall, and had been superseded by a different compound in Schwalbe's "HD" series. But the failed tire is already from that HD series, so this may not be the whole story.

[slogfester]

I ran the same tyre (supreme 26 x 1.6) for a 4000 km tour last year, puncture and trouble free on and off-road, with a 120 kg rig (rider + bike + luggage).

[elderlygentleman]

I had a Supreme 1.6 split across the sidewall at less than 500 miles. That was without panniers and I weigh about 72kgm.
Now on Big Apples and they seem OK so far.

[Tigerbiten]

My supreme's (42-406) on the front of my trike have done ~6,800 miles so far.
There's a slight scuff make on the inside of one due to scrubbing it on a curb.
But apart form that they are fine.
But then again, my tracking is spot on so I don't wear them much.
Two punctures in that distance due to a thorn and a shard of glass.

The big apple (50-406) on the back in half worn in around 1,500 miles.
But that's expected due to the lack of weight on the wheel, it slips badly going uphill in the wet.
No punctures in this tyre yet.

All tyres are run at around 65 psi for comfort.

[geocycle]

I'm on 1.6 supremes since 2011. Done about 11,000 miles touring and commuting. Mixed surfaces. Swapped back to front once. So far all good, just a few cuts in tread and some gentle wear. No complaints.

[gplhl]

I've just done 8,000 miles on my 2.0 supremes before getting regular punctures and swapping over to the spares I've carried.

Ridden on bad roads and dirt tracks a lot.

Gary
www.longbikeride.co.uk