Schwalbe Marathon Plus
Steve and I changed my tyres yesterday – I’ve swapped out the POS tyres the bike came with for Schwalbe Marathon Pluses.
Lined with 5mm of India rubber, Kevlar and with age-resistant side walls, they are as close to bomb-proof as a bike tyre can get and are meant to resist even riding over a drawing pin (we’ll see….).
Despite their stiffness – due partly to metal beading – they were surprisingly easy to fit with a couple of tyre levers.
Shard of quartz
Once the old tyres were off, we found the cut in the inner tube pretty easily by inflating and holding the tyre to Steve’s face – the draught of air was quite strong. The culprit in the tyre was a bit harder, but Steve found it by feeling around with his fingertips (yeah, I know…). It proved to be this: a tiny but razor-sharp shard of quartz. I’m not sure where I picked it up, but the nasty little bastard had embedded itself pretty thoroughly.
We have changed all our tyres now for Schwalbes, and since we have three emergency replacements already, I’ll keep my cut tyre for agility training for the dog.