Schwalbe Marathon Mondial tyres

[HobbesOnTour]

Just thought I'd throw this up here as it may be of use to some.

I've read reviews of Mondial tyres having weak sidewalls and my experience confirms this.

The pictures attached are of a tyre removed yesterday.

There's a distinct pattern of wear on both sides of the sidewall, although it's more prominent on one side. There are diagonal "swipes" in a pattern and some of those swipes are so weak the sidewall has opened.

To be fair, this tyre has ballpark 10k km on it, most of those heavily loaded. It's been mostly used on roads and paths. There has been some use on quite rough off road.
It's interesting to me because, except for the sidewall, the tyre is still good for a lot more use.

It's companion was replaced about 1k km ago - with a large tear in the sidewall too, although a different pattern. I had put that down as a one off but I'm not so sure now.

 

[Pale Rider]

I take your point about there being plenty of life left in the treads, but I suppose they've done a decent mileage for a bike tyre.

My Marathon Pluses hardly showed any tread wear when I sold the bike after almost as many miles.

 

[HobbesOnTour]

I take your point about there being plenty of life left in the treads, but I suppose they've done a decent mileage for a bike tyre.

My Marathon Pluses hardly showed any tread wear when I sold the bike after almost as many miles.

Oh, I'm not complaining. I thought it was a pretty good illumination of what "weak" sidewalls look like. To my uneducated mind the "swipe" pattern is a pretty clear indication of a flawed design or production process.

Often tyre discussions can be quite academic and anecdotal. A picture tells a thousand words 😀

 

[rogerzilla]

I've found Schwalbe quality control has gone downhill, at least for the cheaper tyres. I had an unusably wonky Durano recently, and ordinary Marathons have long had a problem with broken or kinked beads making them difficult to seat on the rim.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

I like the Mondials, they're my favourite tyre by a long way although I'm probably 75/25 on road / light off road so I doubt I'll see issues like this. 10k of course isn't bad either, and 10k of "Hobbes Kilometres" is possibility one of the sternest tests out there!
Interesting pics, cheers.