Cycling UK Forum

Hi Forum,

I'm about to fit new tyres as my new commute is full of hawthorn. So it's Marathon Pluses.

Does anyone have experience of the Marathon Plus Tour? I quite like the look of the knobbly bits as one bit of my ride is along a muddy farm track; but given at least 85% of my riding is on-road, I'm not keen on slowing myself down.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

Ed

ed_b wrote:Hi Forum,

I'm about to fit new tyres as my new commute is full of hawthorn. So it's Marathon Pluses.

Does anyone have experience of the Marathon Plus Tour? I quite like the look of the knobbly bits as one bit of my ride is along a muddy farm track; but given at least 85% of my riding is on-road, I'm not keen on slowing myself down.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

Ed

if it was my bike, i would fit one of the more expensive marathon such as the folding types as the are are sooo much lighter (almost 1/2). I have Marathon Dureme (non tandem version) on my tourer. They work find for all sorts of conditions.

Pluses have a very dead feel to them.

perhaps
MARATHON MONDIAL http://www.schwalbe.co.uk/tour/marathon-mondial/

also do you get pucntures front and back or just back... if just back just fit one marathon plus on the back

I used to do a commute where about half of it was lined with Hawthorn hedges. Once a year they 'cut' (actually flailed) the hedge and left all the debris over the surface. Some of the route was green lane and some of it was tarmac; either way punctures were pretty likely.

The thing is, that was only once a year. The puncture risk was very high for a week or so, and all but gone after a couple of weeks. I didn't (then) think it worth swapping tyres from what I used normally, just for a couple of weeks a year. If you had asked me when I was fixing a puncture in the dark, I might have said something different, mind...

You don't say what size tyres you are using, but if they are (say) 26" x 2.0" then the Marathon Plus Tour tyre weighs a staggering 1.1Kg and it isn't an especially easy roller. Arguably it represents as extreme a tyre choice as, say, studded tyres for ice. Again I am sure there are people who might want to use these all year round too, just like some people default to wellies for their feet, day in and day out. But (provided you are not permanently in those conditions) a more logical choice is the right tyre for the right conditions; swapping tyres two or three times a year isn't terribly onerous on most wheels.

cheers

yes i'd go for a tyre that suited the majority of your ride & time of year and stick to a 'normal' version. from what i can see the plus tyres are more for heavy going in (flat) urban areas often strewn with glass.

people default to wellies?!

people default to wellies?!

Its our local dress code in Carmarthen.

If you are keeping a bike specifically for a short, thorny commute, then leaving plusses on it all year round isn't a problem.
however, if you want to use the same bike for anything like a distance, or a speed, then it changes the game.

Strangely in the eight years i've been using marathon pluses the only two punctures that i've suffered have been due to thorns.... in the last year i've switched from using a marathon plus tyre at the front to an old marathon xr, as sometimes i found the marathon plus tyre would slip in wet conditions if the local cows and tractors had been using the lanes.. (no fault of the tyre itself, just happened to be the fact that there was a film of water, cow muck and mud coating the surface of the road, it wouldn't have been the only tyre that would have lost a little traction)... so far nothing like that has happened with the xr tyre yet, and i've encountered mud and inch deep banks of gravel on corners at the bottom of hills, it seems the xr seems to just plough right through that sort of stuff... might be worth getting a second front wheel with a knobbly tyre ~ if its wet conditions just swap the wheel over for advserse farm track conditions... if its dry use something smoother and lighter... personally i can't be bothered... but then i generally wear heavy doc martin boots most of the time, too..

Is there any difference in puncture protection between the Plus and Plus Tour? It seems more like a difference in tread pattern.
Hawthorn and blackthorn is a problem only if it's cut, so the chances of punctures from these plants depends largely on the management of the route. If it's left unflailed then the chances of a puncture are greatly reduced.
Should you have a blackthorn thorn penetrate the skin make sure the wound doesn't become septic. Hawthorn isn't such a problem as regards infections.

This is interesting - maybe it is just the time of year for the hawthorn. And I hadn't appreciated just how different on weight and rolling resistance the Pluses are.

Here's another consideration - any sense of how they'd perform on winter country roads? Or recommendations of something that would do well? I haven't spent a winter up here yet, but I'm envisaging regular frost and icy puddles even when it hasn't snowed/rained.

For all the lack of space where I live, I'm thinking swapping the tyres round for different conditions is not such a bad idea!

I wonder if it is worth using Marathon Plus as protection against Blackthorn.

I have had Blackthorns penetrate my car and motorcycle tyres, can a cyclist really ride with tyres adequately armoured against these rather evil thorns?

To a Blackthorn I imagine it doesnt really care if it goes through a Marathon Plus or a Marathon Racer, it will go through either no problem.

.

Thanks all! V helpful.