I’ve recently begun riding Schwalbe tires for the first time in my life, and so far I’m extremely pleased. As with most things, tire selection involves balancing competing priorities, and my balance point has shifted more each year toward durability and each tour toward puncture resistance.

When we bought our new Tandem in August, I decided to try the Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires, theoretically completing the journey toward ultimate durability and puncture resistance. With a little under 1000 miles on the tires at this point, I’m extremely satisfied.

Out of the gate, I was a little concerned with how the tire would handle. Initially, in the first 100 miles or so on pavement, I found they took some getting used to. When cornering at even a slight angle, it felt like there was a “break point,” almost like the tire slipped a little bit. This phenomenon diminished as the miles went by, possibly because it’s happening less as the tire wears, but maybe because I’ve gotten used to it. I’m not accustomed to riding tires with this kind of tread, so it’s possible that what I felt was a natural transition as you lean into a turn from the tread on the bottom of the tire to the tread further toward the sidewall.

Where this tire really performed well was on the Katy Trail across Missouri. Christine and I rode the trail in September, and the Marathon Plus performed extremely well on the crusher fines surface of the trail. I rode the trail in 2012 on a road bike with standard 25mm tires as part of a cross-country trip, and had no problems. However, this year, Missouri had endured record-breaking rains over the summer and fall, and we often found the trail completely washed out, or in one case flooded. I felt completely confident on the tires, as they never lost footing in the sometimes poor conditions.

Schwalbe builds its reputation on puncture resistance. We all know the age old exercise of holding our glove on the tire surface after running over crud in the road, and I’ve been finding myself resisting this temptation just to test these tires out. On several occasions I’ve run over glass in the road that has made me shutter, and rather than feeling a little on edge for a few miles hoping that I didn’t end up with a flat, with these tires, I found myself resting easy that I’m not going to be changing a flat.

Durability is the other Schwalbe hallmark, and early indications are that the tire will live up to its reputation here too. With a little under 1000 miles on the set, I’d expect to see a rear tire showing significant wear. However, at this point my rear tire is clearly “broken in,” but current wear makes me believe I’ll get 2000+ miles on it, and the front tire looks nearly new.

The Marathon Plus tires I have under our CoMotion Equator Co-Pilot are 700×35 mounted on Velocity Dyad rims. Christine and I have a combined weight (including the bike) of about 315 pounds (the vast majority of the weight in the captain’s saddle), and when we rode on the Katy Trail we carried about 25 pounds of gear, not including water.

On a 5-star scale, I’d rate these as a 4.5 overall, with a 3 for handling and 5 for puncture resistance and durability. I’ll be moving my traditional road bike over to Schwalbe tires next.