A rare occurrence

[Duckfoot1606]

Had a visit from the p******* fairy this morning, on my Schawalbe Marathon shod Croix de Fer. It’s a bit like Kim Jong Uns haircut, you see it but can hardly believe it, but a 5mm square lump of glass went through the tread, cords and green p******* proof strip.

Even though Marathons make the bike feel more or less unstoppable I carry a spare tube and was soon on my way.

Thats the first visit ever on these tyres, over 3 years now and goodness knows how many miles, just weighing up whether to stick with Marathons or go the whole way and whack on Marathon pluses

A

[Oxford_Guy]

I really don't like Marathon Plus tyres, had them on my Hewitt tourer for just a few weeks, but took them off as hated the dead ride feel they gave the bike, replaced them with Marathon Supremes which made the bike feel so much nicer to ride, like going from driving a truck to driving a sports car. I've stuck with Supremes ever since, now on my second pair. I really experienced punctures when the first set were starting to get worn out after much use.

[Kim]

If you find one puncture every goodness knows how many miles an acceptable rate, then I'd say stick with the regular Marathons.  Pluses for when you really can't afford to have a puncture, either because you can't repair it for some reason, or because you don't want the delay.

On that basis, I use regular marathons on my tourer.

[Canardly]

Ditto. Three years in they may becoming due for replacement anyway, particularly the rear.

[zigzag]

i've had two punctures on marathon pluses, both from glass*, and a sidewall blowout when they were quite worn. i have replaced them with a different make as i was getting tired of their ride quality.

* most likely it would have cut any other tyre

[Brucey]

there are a few objects (such as shards of very jaggy glass) that penetrate the tyre in one go. But most commonly it takes a few turns of the wheel for an object to penetrate a tyre.

This being the case I think that the old-school idea of tyre savers perhaps deserves a revisit; these knock such objects out of the tyre before they can penetrate fully. I feel that there could be an improved design that would work better, too.

cheers

[mrcharly-YHT]

there are a few objects (such as shards of very jaggy glass) that penetrate the tyre in one go. But most commonly it takes a few turns of the wheel for an object to penetrate a tyre.

This being the case I think that the old-school idea of tyre savers perhaps deserves a revisit; these knock such objects out of the tyre before they can penetrate fully. I feel that there could be an improved design that would work better, too.

cheers

Fully agree with you but not sure how you'd design one to work with a treaded tyre. The old wire tyre savers would be ok on a marathon, I suppose, do you think they'd work on something like a pasela?

[Brucey]

dunno, but it might be that anything that might do some good also wouldn't do much harm, so is worth a go?

A fundamental problem with some treaded tyres is that an object that is small enough to disappear into a tread groove in one go still might eventually cause a puncture. To a first approximation if the groove depth is comparable or greater than the thickness of the tyre below the groove, this would be a concern to me.

cheers