Marathon Racer Tires
A Guilty Pleasure?
The Schwalbe Marathon line of tires is designed to give a variety of choices to cyclists pursuing non-racing types of cycling activities. Many of the tires have desirable features such as built-in puncture resistance, reflective sidewalls, and a tread pattern for increased traction. A recent addition to the line is the Marathon Racer, which promises to be “the fastest Marathon tire yet.”
Who needs such a tire? According to Schwalbe, the target audiences are riders used to performance road bikes but who are now involved in activities such as light touring or performance commuting. These cyclists may be looking for performance tire characteristics such as low weight and spare tire foldability, but with a nod to reliability.
As a self-confessed racer-boy, I am the first to be seduced by promises of speed and efficiency. However, after spending a few weeks on these tires I was left with the feeling that these tires purport to solve performance/reliability problems that do not need solving.
For example, in order to gain lightness, a thinner flat protection layer was used, as well as a reduced tread thickness. The light tread pattern struck me as non-functional. Traction on hard surfaces such as road or hard-packed dirt is more a function of tire compound than tread blocks. A tread design is mainly functional in off-road riding on loose dirt, yet it is ubiquitous in commuter/touring tires due to public perception that any tread is safer than no tread. The tread pattern on the Racer is too shallow to be of much use on off-road surfaces and only confers a small traction advantage over a slick tire in daily use.
While I did notice a slight traction advantage with the Marathon Racer (mainly on compacted gravel), it came at the cost of rolling resistance. For comparison, my slick Specialized Nimbus tires have similar traction, but far less rolling resistance.
Like most Schwalbe tires, the Marathon Racer handles fantastically. But in the end, I was left feeling that the tire made too many compromises. It didn’t have the reliability of heavier non-performance tires, and it also had more rolling resistance than a dedicated performance tire. I was left with the impression that the Marathon Racer is great, but only as a guilty pleasure.
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