Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

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531colin
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by 531colin »

My main point is if you are needing levers to put tyres on, or breaking levers taking tyres off, you are doing it wrong, simple as that. If anybody is ever in North Yorkshire with their marathon plusses I would be happy to demonstrate.
Of course marathon plusses puncture.
But then somebody wins the lottery, twice every week, and that hasn't happened to me!
bikegeek
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by bikegeek »

Just been reading this & I wondered, does anyone stretch their new tyres, like you would a tubular?

I had some 20mm Schwable clinchers for racing & had to give them a good stretch before fitting them on some Ksyrium wheels.

What do we think?
P.
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byegad
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by byegad »

531colin wrote:My main point is if you are needing levers to put tyres on, or breaking levers taking tyres off, you are doing it wrong, simple as that. If anybody is ever in North Yorkshire with their marathon plusses I would be happy to demonstrate.
Of course marathon plusses puncture.
But then somebody wins the lottery, twice every week, and that hasn't happened to me!


I don't agree, but even if you're right. Just one tight tyre in the wrong place and you're stuck. I'd rather run tyres with almost as good a resilience and are easy to remove/replace.

I'd also say the comparison to the lottery, about 14,000,000 to 1 is optimistic. My experience of M+'s is they are a lot less less reliable than a 1 in 14.000.000 chance. My own experience, which is too small a sample to be significant, is that 3 Big Apples on a recumbent trike(Well 6 on two trikes really.) where spotting crap in the road is less easy than on an upright, is that they suffer half the frequency of punctures compared to two M+'s on an upright per thousand miles.
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531colin
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by 531colin »

Well, the offer is there. North Yorkshire. Tyre fitting. Relatively tight they may be, stuck you wont be, not if youre doing it right. Not that far north, actually, just outside Leeds.
drossall
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by drossall »

Marathons stretch after one or two fittings but, because they don't puncture much, they don't get stretched much either. If you're really struggling, fit them without an inner tube a couple of times (and remove them again, obviously). That way you can use metal tyre levers without getting a pinch puncture, stretch the beads a bit, and then fit normally with a tube inside.
MacBludgeon
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by MacBludgeon »

drossall wrote:Marathons stretch after one or two fittings but, because they don't puncture much, they don't get stretched much either. If you're really struggling, fit them without an inner tube a couple of times (and remove them again, obviously). That way you can use metal tyre levers without getting a pinch puncture, stretch the beads a bit, and then fit normally with a tube inside.



That is so painfully obvious that I feel like beating my head against the wall for not thinking of it during my 'Marathon' struggle the other day :D
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531colin
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by 531colin »

You dont need levers to fit them, honest. North Yorkshire, demo.. bring your own mara.plus, I dont even ride them.
Do we really think a WIRE bead stretches?
Old mara + go on easier than new, I put that down to the puncture layer taking a curved shape not flat as when new.
byegad
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by byegad »

You can say it as often as you like 531colin, but I for one and I suspect most posters and readers here have fitted and removed their fair share of tyres and are not stupid.

I can sometimes remove my Big Apple tyres with my hands. Admittedly I prefer to use a plastic lever as it's easier, but it can be done. I routinely fit a Big Apple without a lever. Pasela Panaracer Tourguards are easy too.

But M+s are not as easy and can be right so and sos to get on or off. Yes it can be done, but the only time I've ever broken a tyre lever has been with an M+.
"I thought of that while riding my bike." -Albert Einstein, on the Theory of Relativity

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drossall
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by drossall »

I can't for the life of me see how changes in the puncture proofing would affect fitting. The issue in fitting a tyre is to get the bead over the rim. The normal trick is to push the bead into the centre of the rim everywhere else, so that it drops off the internal shoulder. That gives the rim a slightly smaller effective diameter, while you get the last bit of bead over. The rest of the carcass only affects things by sometimes being sufficiently rigid to make the bead pop back into its normal seating.

Yes, a wire bead would stretch if put under sufficient tension. For one thing, bending a wire involves stretching it on the outside of the curve. If you can't stretch something, I can't see how you could bend it either. You can definitely bend bead wires, as anyone who has carried a new tyre home from the LBS by bike knows.

Within its elastic limit, a stretched wire should then compress again when the tension was released. Given that the bead is what makes the tyre hard to fit, and my observation that tyres can be easier to fit second and third time, I'm inclined to conclude that some inelastic stretching can occur, even if in a localised way where you force the last bit over. I haven't thought very hard about what "sufficient tension" would be, or cut a tyre open recently to see the thickness of the beads. However, I'd have thought that it would be an advantage to make bead wires sufficiently thin to make some elastic stretching feasible. The amount required would be tiny - a fraction of a percent.
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531colin
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by 531colin »

drossall wrote:I can't for the life of me see how changes in the puncture proofing would affect fitting. The issue in fitting a tyre is to get the bead over the rim. The normal trick is to push the bead into the centre of the rim everywhere else, so that it drops off the internal shoulder. That gives the rim a slightly smaller effective diameter, while you get the last bit of bead over. The rest of the carcass only affects things by sometimes being sufficiently rigid to make the bead pop back into its normal seating..



But you have just explained it perfectly! The M+ carcass is so rigid it pushes the bead onto the bead seat when you want it in the rim well. That is why it can help to use zip ties or toe straps to keep the beads in the rim well to "give the rim a slightly smaller effective diameter , while you get the last bit of bead over."
drossall
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by drossall »

Stretching can happen under the pressure of air in an inflated tyre - which is how tyres blow off rims, for example. For more on beads stretching, see Chris Juden on folding tyres ("Kevlar stretches more than steel", i.e. both stretch somewhat), and ill-fitting tyres (how to use air pressure to stretch the tyre, i.e. the bead, into place). Also early beads stretching under air pressure (see the bit about subtlety and impact), and this discussion from about half way down (the suggestion that compression of the rubber below is also a factor is interesting).
drossall
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by drossall »

531colin wrote:The M+ carcass is so rigid it pushes the bead onto the bead seat when you want it in the rim well. That is why it can help to use zip ties or toe straps to keep the beads in the rim well to "give the rim a slightly smaller effective diameter , while you get the last bit of bead over."

Absolutely. For my part, I've never found that necessary though. I've always fitted M+s, Ms and even MWs without bothering with all the zip tie stuff.

I'm only suggesting a small stretch, and I don't imagine that I could stretch a bead enough to compensate for the bead not being in the well. If I did that, I'd create a safety issue, because the bead is there to prevent the tyre from stretching and blowing off the rim. Significant stretch in a bead is a bad thing.

Even fitting with thumbs is, I think, going to rely on some stretch. What else is happening as you push that last bit over? Whether you can do it with thumbs only depends on technique, tyre and rim size (they all vary a bit), strength of thumbs and other things. I'm quite prepared to believe that others can fit some tyres by hand where I can't. I don't really care, to be honest - I'm sure that my thumbs must be less strong than they were 35 years ago when I started, so I'd probably get beaten by a younger me, too. With my VAR lever, I can fit anything I've tried so far.

There are lots of good tips in this thread. Take any you like. The aim is the riding, not the tyre fitting :D
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Just fitted two new tyres to the front of my new toy, a bit of string was definitely helpful to hold the tyre in place and stop me chasing that last bit round the rim. Couldn't get the old ones off without a couple of levers (spoon and screwdriver actually) though.

Just how do you guys who say it's all finger work get that first bit of tyre off the rim?
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byegad
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by byegad »

My Big Apples are on 406 rims and with the tube fully deflated it's possible to get the bead into the well on one side of the rim and slide one side of the tyre off the rim with a twist and push from the other side of the tyre. TBH it's easier to flip it off with a lever, but I can usually do it by hand.

I really don't see how anyone can remove or fit an M+ without tools, My experience of them is on 700C and 406 rims and they were pigs to get on and off even with four levers and lots of swearing!
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drossall
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Re: Tip - fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres

Post by drossall »

I don't think anyone is advocating removing tyres without using levers (although you often can with looser-fitting MTB tyres). There isn't the same danger of pinch punctures as when fitting.
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