thirdcrank wrote:Schwalbe downloads The 'technical information' pdf download is well worth a read.
It's interesting to see from that that even Schwalbe don't understand imperial tyre size markings
Inch size designations are less accurate. A tire marked 28 x 1 5/8 x 1 3/8 indicates an approximate outer diameter of 28 inch, the tire section height of 1 5/8-inch, and the tire section width of 1 3/8-inch. Inch sizes can also follow the pattern 26 x 2.10, which, in this case indicates only tire’s outer diameter and the tire’s section width.
I am hoping they will arrive this week so I can fit them on the weekend.
I've had the schwabe marathon on my dahon in the past and still got punctures now and then - again I think most were caused by pinching the tube when hitting hard bumps. Probably not something that would bother all cyclists - but then not many cyclists my weight ride on such small tyres. I do not doubt that if I were on mountain bike tyres I would not have this problem.
However I like ot keep my 10 mile commute to less than 45 minutes so a hybrid suits me best.
£40 for a pair of these tyres devlivered, the time it coses me to change 1 puncture is more costly than that - not to mention the 2 pair inner tubes I have to carry and the CO2.
I will put up with a lot of downsides in order to never have to worry about punctures or air pressure.
As for hardness of ride.... With the armadillo tyre pumped to 125 I keep checking back on it to make sure its not flat and I'm riding on the rim the bugger feels that hard - however right now thats the only way to reduce punctures from up to 3 in one journey to one every week or two.
However if that fails a pair of schwabe marathon will be fitted in a few weeks time
E-2-E without a single flat on a pair of Bontrager Triple Puncture protected bike tyres - 700/28 if i remember correctly and 'cheap' !
You've nothing to lose !
Shaun
I do like Marathon Pluses, but I've just punctured mine again. One thing I find is that the thickness of the tread makes it harder to find the embedded flint than with other tyres!
AntonyG wrote:In case anyone is interested in how the Marathon Plus tyres are performing:- 18 months since fitting, 3800 miles of carefree and comfortable riding, plenty of glass cycled over (unintentionally), but still no punctures. I've even started giving away my excess stockpile of spare inner tubes, amassed at a time when I could scarcely get through a working week without having to take the tyre off.
Thanks for the tip about looking for bits stuck in the tyre. I turn the bike over and have a quick look once every few months. Occasionally I pop something out with the edge of a screwdriver, but mostly the shards seem to have dropped out of their own accord.
Can I ask if you now replace inner tubes at set intervals? My fear would be that that once puntures are out of the picture there is the possibility of the tubes deteriating if the're not replaced after a long time and eventually leaking air.
I'm planning to upgrade my bike to Swalbe Marathons and may instigate this maintenence procedure to further eliminate the possibility of roadside punctures.
In my experience, inner tubes can last almost indefinitely. I'm still using at least one (as I found when changing a tyre the other day) of those Michelin tubes that had the valve fixed by a nut and washer rather than vulcanised in. I don't think they've made them like that for at least a decade, and although this tube has a fine collection of patches, they don't number more than a dozen and are all sealing perfectly, so this venearable tube remained on the wheel, under the brand new tyre. I wouldn't be surprised if it outlasts that one too.
Discarding inner tubes with one simple hole (cuts are another matter, they grow under the patch) is a waste of depleting resources. Inner tubes might literally have grown on trees when they were latex, but modern butyl is oil, solid oil.
Chris Juden One lady owner, never raced or jumped.
I thought I'd share my experience of Greentyres (generally good)..
I had Greentyres as a kid after my dad was sick of fixing punctures, and later on in life for about 1.5 years when I was commuting 125 miles a week to work on roads and getting too many punctures.
They are indestructible but you have to work a tiny bit harder than with air tyres - there is a bit more drag. It's a trade off between being overtaken by other cyclists a bit more frequently, and smugly gliding through all the swarf and glass at intersections and the side of the road.
The ones I had as a kid were on a mountain bike with no suspension. They did buckle the wheels over the years, which started to play havoc with the brake alignment.
More recently, I used the 'Americano' brand on my current cheapo mountain bike which has front suspension. I tend to hit kerbstones at speed so I wrote off the back wheel after about 1 year since the spokes gradually cracked away from the centre. The replacement wheel (£20) has been much tougher, and only needed a couple of spokes replacing before I put air tyres back on more recently.
They are an absolute pain to fit to the wheel, with lots of standing back and thinking "That's NEVER going to fit! Did I order the correct size?" - but have faith, a few red knuckles and beads of sweat later and hey presto! It helps if you have another person to help hold it on as you work round the wheel.
They aren't as comfy as air tyres, and you don't have quite as much handling either. I didn't notice any problems with them in the wet but no-handed is much more difficult for some reason. They are still pretty good though, you are not going to endanger yourself through lack of control if you decide to use them.
If consistent journey time is paramount then these are ideal. I rode up the Grand Union Canal from London to Birmingham with these tyres, and when I reached my destination there must have been a dozen offensive sharps wedged into them - would have surely been a miserable experience with air tyres.
I sold my last lot in awful condition on Ebay for nearly as much as I paid for them brand new from the website, and the buyer still gave me great feedback, so you won't be out of pocket if you wanna try them out.
I switched back to air tyres because the drag was getting to me. So now I'm back in the world of the vulnerbale, I have found that treating each puncture like a formula 1 pit stop session seems to help - i.e. get it sorted quickly and get back on the road in under 5 mins if poss, rather than spending 15 minutes cursing at the roadside!
[quote="CJ
In my experience, inner tubes can last almost indefinitely. I'm still using at least one (as I found when changing a tyre the other day) of those Michelin tubes that had the valve fixed by a nut and washer rather than vulcanised in. I don't think they've made them like that for at least a decade, and although this tube has a fine collection of patches, they don't number more than a dozen and are all sealing perfectly, so this venearable tube remained on the wheel, under the brand new tyre. I wouldn't be surprised if it outlasts that one too.
Discarding inner tubes with one simple hole (cuts are another matter, they grow under the patch) is a waste of depleting resources. Inner tubes might literally have grown on trees when they were latex, but modern butyl is oil, solid oil.[/quote]
Hey Chris - in the days when we could get the red pucture repare sheets, I used to write the date of the repair onto the patch with a ball-point. I was fixing one the other day, and there were patches dated 1985.
The thing is that after a while a much repaired tube is better than new because it's twice as thick.
I had a set of Hutchinson Acrobats on my commuting bike.
4000 miles in a year, and no punctures. I bought a track pump and kept them at 60 PSI.
I sold the bike to my mate, and he had terrible trouble with them after that, though, but to be honest I don't think any bike tyre owes you after 4000 miles.
chris667 wrote:I had a set of Hutchinson Acrobats on my commuting bike. 4000 miles in a year, and no punctures. I bought a track pump and kept them at 60 PSI. I sold the bike to my mate, and he had terrible trouble with them after that, though, but to be honest I don't think any bike tyre owes you after 4000 miles.
I ride different kind of tyres on different kind of bike, but my experience goes along with what you say. I get 4,000 - 4,500 miles from a rear tyre and 6,000 miles ish from a front.
The greentires arrived this week - I'm going to aim to fit them this weekend, though there might be a bit of a delay before I get to ride them as I'm stuck off work with the flu.
However from first impressions they seem a touch softer than I normally have to have my tires to avoid punctures (which still is not 100% effective, and tends to require pumping them up 2 or 3 times a week to maintain the pressure)
Thus far I'm hopeful - I'll let you know how easily they go on and how they ride.
Don't recall having any puntures since I fitted Bontrager Race Lite Hard Case tyres on my racing bike, 700Cx25. Quite a few cuts on the tread but no punctures! ~ 2 years old they tend to wear quite well.
The Cheng Shin tyres on my tourer / commuter bike however puncture very easily. Looks like I'll be looking for alternatives for my touring bike!
Not too bad really - the tool they supply makes it easier - getting it onto the rim is not too hard.
The harder part is getting it sunk into the the rim. However I found putting the tire flat and using a stabbing motion with the tool with your body weight behind it quite effective.
To be honest I found them easier (though more time consuming) to fit than the scwhabe marathon plus tires I had on my dahon
The feel of the tires on the bike is quite hard - I wouldn't want to be using them off road or anything like that, however after a test 100-200 yards I would not say they felt that different to my normal tires at 125PSI.
These are 700x23c tires btw.
Bear in mind that the main cause of punctures for me has not been sharp objects, but rather the rim pinching the tube after hitting small bumps hard enough and fast enough to have the tire compress all the way to the rim - the main reason for this is the fact I weight about 105Kg
I'm not sure that these tires would be the best for everyone, but if you normally use small road tires at very high pressure, have an above average weight and get frequent punctures for a similar reason to me then these could be the way to go.
I'll give an update later in the week once I've taken them to work and back (20 mile round trip on london roads, mostly good with occasional moon craters)
Right well I've had the green tires on my hybrid for the last week now so time for a report on the ride.
These at the 700x23 90psi equiv tires.
Hardness:
They honestly do not feel too different to the tires I normally use at 125PSI - yes its a hard ride and you will feel rough ground but I cycle on the road and don't notice any issues.
Grip:
Not as good as normal tires, breaking hard they seem a little more likely to skid than normal rubber tires
Performance:
This is the only area I have a concern as they do seem to make the ride harder. However its hard to give an objective comparison as before switching to them I had been too ill to cycle for 2 1/2 weeks meaning my fitness has been heavily affected. Currently my 37 minute cycle to work is taking 45 minutes but I can't say how much this is down to my fitness and how much is the tires. One factor I am pretty sure is the tires is the down hill speed. At the start of my journey there is a down hill stretch of dual carriageway, previous without much in the way of effort I was doing 29-30 by the bottom of the down hill stretch, now I am only doing about 27.
One other thing I should note, the tires seem to perform better as they warm up - if stored inside they are better at the start of the journey than if stored in a cold garage, and as they warm up during the journey they seem to improve. I should add that the downhill section is right at the start of my trip and the bike is kept overnight in a garage.
All in all I am quite happy with them. Even if I do have to add 5 minutes each way on to my journey even once I get back in shape. The reason being I can plan for that 5 minutes, leave a little earlier and if nothing else its a bit of an extra workout.
I can't plan for the delay of having to change a puncture, or two or worse more than that - which I have had on a single trip. I've tried pretty much every kind of tire and keep them at high pressure, but all still get more punctures than I would prefer, to my knowledge these are not caused by sharp objects puncturing them, but by the rim pinching the tube on hitting a bump - usually on the one day when I've forgotten to check the pressure.
So if like me you are above average weight (100kg) and frequently suffer this type of puncture on your commute and can't afford the delay I would recommend these - they may make your trip a little harder and your speed a little lower, but given the number of people I passed this morning who were in the process of a puncture repair on the road side I am more than comfortable with the extra effort.
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