Puncture procedure

[steve216c]

I ride with HS440 on my bike

Is that the Marathon Plus?

Yes. Marathon Plus are they. I'm not sure what you mean by wooden? I will admit I've ridden faster tyres but keep these pumped to max psi and they are pretty usable and not that slow. And they are reliably boring in keeping the air on the inside of the tyre too.

[energyman]

"they are reliably boring in keeping the air on the inside of the tyre too."
....... and that is all I ask of a tyre !

Mind you I could have done with spikes this morning....... 

[Andre Jute]

I ride with HS440 on my bike

Is that the Marathon Plus?

Yes. Marathon Plus are they. I'm not sure what you mean by wooden? I will admit I've ridden faster tyres but keep these pumped to max psi and they are pretty usable and not that slow. And they are reliably boring in keeping the air on the inside of the tyre too.

I'm with Paul. I can't think of a more uncomfortable tyre than the Marathon Plus (and its workalike, the Bontrager Elite Hardcase, whose name already tells you you need a bum of cast iron to ride on it). 99.9999 per cent puncture proof it surely is. But then so is the most comfortable tyre I know, the 60x622 Schwalbe Big Apple, a distant cousin of the Marathon, 99.9999 per cent puncture proof. I know which one I'd rather ride on.

Trivia: The Big Apple is supposedly part of the Marathon range, but I doubt the relationship is close enough to feature in the frontispiece of a Church of England Bible as forbidden consanguinity.

Come the the spring or the summer, you could experiment with lower pressures in the Marathon Plus and gain a margin of comfort.

[Aleman]

I think it's more likely the time spent getting the tyres on and off the wheel that is going to be the real problem rather than getting the wheels out of the frame 

I will admit that the folding Schwalbe Marathon Supreme Evo have been a delight for me in all three flavours I use (700c by 35, 29 by 1.6, and 26 by 1.75) ... I still use Continental GP 4000 II's on my road bike though ... and its the Schwalbes that I can take on and off without using levers of any sort. I only really ride on "Pavement", although on some of the back roads it can be a bit broken and gravel strewn. In the last 4 of 5 years I think I've had 3 punctures, all on my road bike, caused by glass, blackthorn and mussel shell. I think it was only the blackthorn that caused a puncture in the contis, the other two punctures were in the tyres supplied with the Giant Defy

[PH]

"they are reliably boring in keeping the air on the inside of the tyre too."
....... and that is all I ask of a tyre !

All you ask?
I'm not saying I don't consider it, but it isn't even in my top three.

[PH]

Yes. Marathon Plus are they. I'm not sure what you mean by wooden?

I mean you take all the advantages of a hundred years development in pneumatics and throw most of it away by making a solid tread and stiff sidewalls.
Seriously - If they suit you great, like I said I know someone who rides on nothing else.  I put comfort at the top of mu list (Within reason) on a typical 10 hour ride, I'd rather spend 10 min fixing a puncture than 9 hours less comfortable than I could be. The reality is it's one puncture every several hundred hours riding.  That comfort comes from the tyres more than anything else  (It says something similar in the Thorn manual) in turn that's largely a factor of their ability to deform and recover, which in turn is a combination of pressure and flexibility... I've seen rolling resistance tests for the standard Marathon and the Plus, it's about 20% higher despite them having the same tread compound, that difference can only come from the stiffness.
There have been huge improvements in tyres over the last twenty years, you can get big 35mm+ tyres that roll as well as the race 25's did then and still puncture less often than old tractor tyres. Given the choice of a 70's bike on modern tyres or a new bike on 70's tyres I'd choose the former.

[steve216c]

I'm with Paul. I can't think of a more uncomfortable tyre than the Marathon Plus (and its workalike, the Bontrager Elite Hardcase, whose name already tells you you need a bum of cast iron to ride on it). 99.9999 per cent puncture proof it surely is. But then so is the most comfortable tyre I know, the 60x622 Schwalbe Big Apple, a distant cousin of the Marathon, 99.9999 per cent puncture proof. I know which one I'd rather ride on.

Trivia: The Big Apple is supposedly part of the Marathon range, but I doubt the relationship is close enough to feature in the frontispiece of a Church of England Bible as forbidden consanguinity.

Come the the spring or the summer, you could experiment with lower pressures in the Marathon Plus and gain a margin of comfort.

I had a pair of Big Apple on my 26" bike, and punctured them both within a season. My wife (half my weight) now had those transferred to her 26" and she has had one puncture since- although they've been mounted for years as she is only an occasional 'pop down the shops or ride around the park with the kids' kind of gal!

I replaced the Big Apples with the same sized Marathon Plus on the 26", and have probably ridden around 2000km without incident since fitting.

To be honest, now you mention it, when I bought my 28" Winora with Rohloff, it had 32-622 Marathons on it, which I found very uncomfortable on anything other than smooth roads. But these were quite worn out, and the seller gave me a set of used 40-622 with reasonable wear still in them which were a big improvement in comfort, but still narrower than those 42-622 on my 28" derailleur bike.

I think there is much to be said for a wider tyre adding comfort. The German bike club ADFC have long recommended good balloon tyres as generally more comfortable (and far cheaper) than bikes with most entry/mid range suspension systems- and I have to say that my Winora Labrador with Suntour NCX suspension fork is not noticeably more comfortable than my similar sized derailleur bike on those slightly wider marathons. While a small statistical sample, I've not been convinced that the suspension fork is a must have if I were putting together a custom bike. Good tyre choice might not only save money but make more sense for longer term comfort riding.