Best puncture resistant road bike tyres...

[Jenkins]

Please link to these tyres at £25. Rolled some a few years ago (in 25) and was impressed. And think they do 28s now.

Sorry, that was a guesstimate - best I can see on a quick look is Decathlon at £30

 

[Mr Celine]

System weight and tyre width for me is the same (but with Conti GP4000S2 28-622 - I have a few left).
50psi on the front is rather low and you risk snake bites, imho: the tubes are not made of 'gatorskin'.
YMMV
The graph below is from the BQ article by the famous Jan Heine (2006) (attached).
Having had a significant off (ICU etc) fast downhill bitd I add 5psi to the values shown. This also means if I haven't recently (ie this week) checked pressures I can be confident that there'll still be sufficient pressure in the front tyre to be safe.


View attachment 754933

Having accidentally discovered one summer, through failing to check tyre pressures regularly, how comfy Gatorskins became at reduced pressures I experimented with reducing the pressures in the 700 x 25 GP4000s I had on my summer road bike at the time.
With a 10% reduction I had two snake bites in a week so abandoned the experiment and went back to 85 front 100 rear.

The sidewalls of Gatorskins appeared to be much stiffer than those on GP4000s. I assume that this is why I've never had a snake bite with Gatorskins at lower pressures.

 

[matticus]

Sorry, that was a guesstimate - best I can see on a quick look is Decathlon at £30

... or £27 if you like the hardcore 23c option!

But £30 is less than the £50 for GP 4 Seasons - so the "Pro4" is quite a cheap tyre. I was very impressed with them back in the day; they had good p***ture protection for a light tyre, and we didn't have good RR figures back then so they seemed quite fast!
I guess it's good to have options ...

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Do we have a purchase yet? The suspense is killing me.

 

[Ajax Bay]

From the Decathlon site shared ^^ by @Jenkins , the Schwalbe-green-marathons look a good bet for the OP:
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/schwalbe-green-marathon/_/R-p-X8924590

 

[vickster]

I found the Pro 4 a little slippy when new in 25 guise. They did start to puncture and wear quite badly after maybe 2500 miles (in fact the punctured rear was slightly spilling its hairy innards prior to replacement with Rubinos!)

 

[Mazz]

Do we have a purchase yet? The suspense is killing me.

Yes mate, but not delivered yet.
I went for Schwalbe Durano DD Addix RaceGuard Wired 700c Road Tyre 700 x 25c.
£23 a pop, pardon the pun.

 

[vickster]

Yes mate, but not delivered yet.
I went for Schwalbe Durano DD Addix RaceGuard Wired 700c Road Tyre 700 x 25c.
£23 a pop, pardon the pun.

ooh wired, hope they're ok to get on the rims (as it's cold, perhaps pre warm in airing cupboard or similar)

 

[HLaB]

I found the Pro 4 a little slippy when new in 25 guise. They did start to puncture and wear quite badly after maybe 2500 miles (in fact the punctured rear was slightly spilling its hairy innards prior to replacement with Rubinos!)

I never found them slippy in either 23 or 25 mm but I'm a lighter rider so I don't have to pump tyres rock hard and I also had better luck out of them on the p'ture front. I couldn't find them in 23mm recently though so my commuter is running a Mitchelin Lithion 2 on the front. The rear until I went tubeless was a 25mm Pro 4 and IIRC that p'tured twice, months apart, in circa 4000 miles.

 

[Mazz]

Fitted the tyres yesterday and rode the bike today. Really impressed with the reassuring grip on the road. Dunno if that's because these are 25mm compared to my usual 23mm or if it's the rubber compound or what, but I'm impressed.

 

[abcd efg]

It is never easy to mount Marathon Pluses. But I have done it with levers. And now that I have arthritis in my hands I expect it might be even harder. But people do it all the time and for me, the extra puncture resistance is worth the risk of having to remount the tyre. Actually getting tyre pressures right was almost as much a pain. Over the past year I have ridden my Airnimal Joey at 60psi (my first choice) then 45psi and then 40psi. Yesterday when I collected the bike from the bike shop where it had been for a service, I found the shop had pumped both the tyres to 50psi and they were perfect. I learned two lessons. One is that 50psi is indeed the correct right pressure for me and the Joey's 24in x 1.75 in wheels. And two, always listen carefully to the bike shop folk. They will have had a great deal more experience on a wider variety of bikes than I will ever get.

Interesting about Marathon Plus tyre pressures. I tried 50psi, then 40psi and then my bike shop said that in their view, 60psi is correct for the bike, my weight and the type of cycling that I do most of the time. As in so many other areas, bike shops often get it right because they usually know the cutomer, his or her weight and all the other things that should be taken into consideration when it comes to tyre pressures.

 

[freiston]

I've been using "puncture resistant" tyres for decades now (since the 90s, when, as I recall it, there was only one type of Marathon tyre) and rarely get punctures. I can't say that I notice much differences in ride quality between different tyres but once one tyre is off the bike and another one on, I wouldn't trust my recall to be good enough to properly judge the differences.

Tyres I'm currently using are:

• Vittoria Randonneur Pro II Folding Tyre (32mm)
• Schwalbe Marathon Mondial Folding HS428 (50mm)
• Schwalbe Energizer Plus HS492 (38mm but specced as 700x38c and 40-622 - on the bike now my digital caliper reports them as 37.2mm)

I'm happy with all of them. The Energizers are on my utility/commuting bike (a 25+ year old hybrid) and they feel very good. They're marketed as Ebike tyres but my bike ain't electric.

 

[TomDW]

When I got my first single speed commuter bike I wanted faster tyres. It's something to do with starting in a hard gear.
The Panaracer RiBMo's have been good, a kind of cross between a commuter & road tyre @28mm. I've had one puncture in 5yrs.
I've ridden the Marathon plus & Specialized Nimbus which undoubtedly do have good protection but I'm now converted to Panaracer.

 

[accountdeleted]

Commuter in hilly Hampshire for 8+years here.

Started out with something like Clement Strada LGG 28c not knowing anything about bike tyres and puncture protection. Got shredded within a year / 2,000miles.

Moved on to the big guns Marathon Plus. 25c for maybe 2 years, 6,000miles = no puncture. Then got 28c variant, nearly 6 years, 10,000miles (of which 3,500miles was on ebike) = only one puncture from a massive thorn after a stormy night in early 2024. Definitely vouch for Marathon Plus, if puncture-free ride is paramount.

Seriously considered but never tried airless tyres (likes of Tannus) - lots of video testimony on YouTube that convinced me they're not for me. Also considered Gatorskin, but I seemed to find Schwalbe brand equivalent cheaper than Continental so never had the chance to try Gatorskin. Also thought about going tubeless, but the initial set-up cost (and wheel / tyre compatibility) and ongoing faff of topping up sealants turned me off.

I'm more savvy with minimising puncture (being road-aware to avoid potholes, debris, traffic, etc; checking tread end of week and monthly wash) as others have shared their wisdom.

I'm now on Durano Plus 28c (same puncture protection level 7 as Marathon Plus) as I'm keen to try something lighter and faster. And my god, it feels and is much faster than Marathon Plus. Though based on mere 46miles since changing, the same commute was 1.5mph faster on Durano Plus than Marathon Plus. I also changed the inner tube from cheap butyl to cheap TPU...