Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

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CyberKnight
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by CyberKnight »

if i only got 2 punctures in 3000 miles i would be ecstatic, part of my commute that i cant avoid is covered in crap like that .Currently its covered in gravel as well from a lorry spillage to make it nice and slippy .reported it to the council repeatedly and even my MP but nothing ever gets fixed
John Wayne: "I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on... I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."
Manc33
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by Manc33 »

CyberKnight wrote: 22 Oct 2021, 7:56amif i only got 2 punctures in 3000 miles i would be ecstatic
Are you on Marathon Plus tyres?
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Manc33
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by Manc33 »

Even with Tannus Armour inserts, I got a puncture the other day.

It was a nail and not a long one either, maybe 12mm.

That's the final straw, I'm putting a solid tyre on the rear.
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gazza_d
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by gazza_d »

That is very bad luck with marathon plus. They are very good for commuting but not completely infallible.

If tube swapping is a pain because of wheel removal then you can buy double ended inner tubes that don't need the wheel to come off
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/inner-tubes-double-ended/
Manc33
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by Manc33 »

gazza_d wrote: 17 Jun 2022, 4:47pm That is very bad luck with marathon plus. They are very good for commuting but not completely infallible.

If tube swapping is a pain because of wheel removal then you can buy double ended inner tubes that don't need the wheel to come off
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/inner-tubes-double-ended/
Cheers Gazza, I thought about those in the past, but wasn't keen on the (possible?) gap between the two ends.

With Marathon Plus and Tannus Armour, it takes something big to cause a puncture and thus, you can see it in the tyre. That means repairing the puncture without removing the wheel is quite easy, since the hardest part about it is knowing where the inner tube is punctured... but I'm just going to throw a Tannus Aither Razor Blade (26"x1.75") on it so I never have to bother again. :roll:

Let's see if it's...
- Slippery in the wet, especially on the road over painted lines (multiple people have mentioned this).
- A harsher ride (I've got a decent suspension seatpost on).
- Reduces my average speed by about 1.5 MPH (don't really care, it's an eBike so the motor can push harder, not me!)
- Breaks spokes (hopefully not, my wheel has 36 spokes @ 2.5mm diameter).
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531colin
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by 531colin »

drossall wrote: 18 Oct 2021, 6:35pm This was my worst-ever puncture. I use Marathons a lot. Don't think this was one, but I'm not sure it would have made any difference. puncture_small.jpg
THAT.....is impressive!

I thought Manc. was doing well to get a penny piece through his tyre......then I saw the nail!

The weirdest thing I have seen through a tyre was a lad at school got a tubular box spanner through his tyre, a thing like these https://www.toolstation.com/minotaur-bo ... lsrc=3p.ds

OK, it wasn't a big one, maybe as thick as your finger, but all the same......how???
He carried the bike to school to show us!
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531colin
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by 531colin »

RickH wrote: 22 Oct 2021, 12:28am .............
Rear punctures are more common, IMHO, due to a number of factors. It is easier to swerve the front wheel round something that you spot at the last moment. Most sharp objects (shards of glass, nails, thorns) are unstable & will generally lie flat on the road/path but may be kicked up by your front wheel & not have fallen over again by the time you run over them with your rear wheel. There is generally more weight on your rear wheel so there is subsequently more force driving anything you do run over sharp side up into the tyre.
I think that must be the explanation. It will take a lot of force to drive a nail through drossall's RIM, or a box spanner through a tyre. If the object is at exactly the wrong angle (radial to the wheel?) and the other end can't slide away its got nowhere else to go except into the tyre.
Manc33
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by Manc33 »

After using the Tannus Aither (26" x 1.75") for about 12 miles it's been perfectly fine, I'm keeping it on. :)

It's not 1.75" though, it's 1.6". :roll: Maybe Tannus mean with the squishing into the road, it's effectively a 1.75" :?:

It felt bizarre at first, lifeless, not tracking properly or something, squirmy, but either I'm getting used to it or it's settling into the rim better, maybe both. Some of the squirminess is still there but it's tolerable.

As far as the ride being harsher, it isn't, but I have a decent suspension seatpost on. It doesn't feel any different at all in terms of how harsh it is. Previously I had Marathon Plus with Tannus Armour inserts so, maybe that combination has a bit of squirm to it anyway, so it's not been that noticeable on the solid tyre.

My average speed is indeed slower but I expected that - it doesn't matter much to me because I have got a motor on, so while I'm going at about 13.5 MPH instead of 15 MPH, I'm not putting in any more effort.

I've not tried them on wet roads yet but the grip has been decent enough in the dry, albeit for 12 miles.
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DaCookieMonsta
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by DaCookieMonsta »

Manc33 wrote: 18 Oct 2021, 8:54pm
bikepacker wrote: 18 Oct 2021, 6:50pm A few year back I tried a pair of solid tyres from the Greentyre company. They lasted about a week on my Mercian, it was like cycling through treacle.
Yeah I heard the Tannus drag a bit, but I've got a motor on so it can deal with that problem. :P

The only other thing might be the harsher ride but, I'll just have to see what it's like.

Getting a Tannus off to put a new spoke in is another thing that would be a lot harder than on a normal setup.
I did manage to bust a rear spoke within 100mi of use of those Tannuses, the front is not so much an issue but I do find that the ride is harsh, there is a bit of a drag that seems odd and the front wheel looks to need some truing which I suspect is down to the Tannuses. I wouldn't recommend for heavy riders (which I am). They also feel squirly on painted lines even in dry weather.

I got these a few years ago because I was quite averse to punctures but at this point I would rather have the puncture and get over with. I'd take Marathon + over Tannus but taking off/putting on those Marathon's is really difficult unless you carry cable ties with you. I do rarely get punctures with Marathons.
Manc33
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Re: Two punctures in one week on Marathon Plus, after 3,000+ miles getting away with it

Post by Manc33 »

DaCookieMonsta wrote: 2 Jul 2022, 9:11pmGetting a Tannus off to put a new spoke in is another thing that would be a lot harder than on a normal setup.
If the nipple is still poking through the rim and you can keep it there, a new spoke can probably be put in and bent to go into the nipple. I was going to try to get hold of something like a really tiny pair of vise grips or something to clamp onto the nipple, if they make vise grips that small. That would solve the problem of the nipple vanishing into the rim but it would still be tough to bend a new spoke in and screw the nipple on because then the vise grips have to be taken off - unless they are so tiny they can be turned inside the space between 2 spokes. :lol: You're talking like a 2cm long vise grip, they just don't exist. Maybe if the vise grips can be positioned almost vertically, they could turn while clamped to the nipple. Hmmmm.

Something like this might work if most of the handle was chopped off...

Image
DaCookieMonsta wrote: 2 Jul 2022, 9:11pmI did manage to bust a rear spoke within 100mi of use of those Tannuses...
What width was the tyre?
How many spokes did the wheel have?
Were the spokes checked for tension beforehand?
DaCookieMonsta wrote: 2 Jul 2022, 9:11pmI'd take Marathon + over Tannus but taking off/putting on those Marathon's is really difficult unless you carry cable ties with you. I do rarely get punctures with Marathons.
I'm on an eBike and put some scales under the rear wheel with me sat on the bike last night, there's 75 KG of weight on the rear wheel. While I never got a puncture in 3,000+ miles on Marathon Plus alone, as soon as I put a battery and motor on the bike, I started getting them (the original title of this thread were the first 2). After that I put Tannus Armour in and got away with it for about another 500 miles but then I got a puncture even with M+ and Tannus Armour. The Armour squashes down to about 4mm (it's 15mm when new). So that meant I had about 5mm of tyre and 4mm of Tannus Armour making it about 9mm between the road and my inner tube. The thing that did it was some sort of stubby roofing nail, about 10mm long. Because of the weight of the bike, it was fully embedded in the tyre.

Marathon Plus are hard to get on when they are brand new, but if you've been riding on them for hundreds of miles, they can be put on without even using tyre levers, at least that's what I found. So by the time a puncture does happen, the tyre has expanded enough that it's nowhere near as tough as when they were brand new.

I had M+ and Tannus Armour (that squished down from 15mm to about 4mm) and still got a puncture on the rear. That's what made me get the solid Tannus. Yes it was iffy on a painted line last night and that was in the dry. :lol:

What gets me is, there's a company in Japan that puts those Tannus on their bikes and they have sold 160,000 bikes with them on. Also, Specialized put a tyre they called "Nimbus" (that was actually the Tannus Aither 1.1) on their "Alibi" hybrid fitness bikes - so if tens of thousands of bikes in Japan are being sold with them already fitted and Specialized have put their name to them too... it does show me that perhaps these tyres aren't that bad.

Having a solid tyre that's even remotely tolerable as a usable bike tyre, is the holy grail!

I've done about 22.5 miles on that rear now and I'd estimate my average speed has dropped from 14.9 MPH to 14.1 MPH so that's a 5.7% decrease in speed. Since I still have a pneumatic on the front (and that's silly since I can still get a puncture and have to carry a pump, levers, patches etc) I am planning on putting a Tannus on the front too. Using one on the rear for about 10 miles made me think OK I'll put one on the front as well.

What I have already found has to be avoided is when there's a parallel groove running alongside the Tannus tyre, like in the below pic - but aren't we all avoiding grooves in the road like this on normal tyres anyway? On a Tannus it has a bigger effect though.

Image
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