Tyre liners.

[albion]

The answer to the problem of punctures is puncture resistant tyres. With or without puncture sealing gunk of some kind in the tube. Or obvs in the tyre if tubeless.

Tyre liners add weight, increase rolling resistance, ruin ride quality and will eventually, (100% guaranteed) wear a hole in your inner tube.

Marathon Plus add weight, increase rolling resistance and are not so puncture proof after running a few miles on a slow puncture.
A liner can last decades. Mine were originally bought for my failing marathon plus tyres.

 

[fossyant]

Marathon Plus add weight, increase rolling resistance and are not so puncture proof after running a few miles on a slow puncture.
A liner can last decades. Mine were originally bought for my failing marathon plus tyres.

OMG, Marathons and a liner.. J..H..C...

 

[albion]

They(my failing Marathon Plus) are part of the reason I adopted 'better' Xpedium level 7 tyres for my main bike.
Note Schwalbe now do 7 level tyres too. However I wonder about 5mm of rubber versus 3mm of rubber plus a kevlar/aramid layer.
I certainly got thorns going through my Plus, maybe because the layer is only 5mm thick dead centre.

 

[fossyant]

They(my failing Marathon Plus) are part of the reason I adopted 'better' Xpedium level 7 tyres for my main bike.

Is that code for Tank tracks ?

 

[albion]

Is that code for Tank tracks ?

Code for 'premium tyre'

 

[fossyant]

Code for 'premium tyre'

Like a fast race tyre ?

Never heard of Xpedium ? Ditch finders as we call them on car tyres in the UK.

 

[albion]

Faster than Plus, though what isn't?
Talking of weight, adding a tire liner to most tyres will still end up with a tyre lighter than Marathon Plus.
So tire liners actually save weight, if they work. My tyre linered 20" CST City Parkour is still 200 grams lighter than a 20" Marathon Plus.
A positive conversation then, as I was almost tempted to buy Plus.

 

[Punkawallah]

According to Google AI (from Bicycle Stack Exchange), for maximum speed use puncture resistant tyres, for commuting use tyre liners. Watts penalty of 1.7 for ‘Mr Tuffy Ultralite’, 14 for Panracer Flataway.

 

[mickle]

Marathon Plus add weight, increase rolling resistance and are not so puncture proof after running a few miles on a slow puncture.
A liner can last decades. Mine were originally bought for my failing marathon plus tyres.

Marathon Plus are indeed heavy and slow. Other excellent puncture resistant tyres sre available, even from Schwalbe.

 

[mickle]

They(my failing Marathon Plus) are part of the reason I adopted 'better' Xpedium level 7 tyres for my main bike.
Note Schwalbe now do 7 level tyres too. However I wonder about 5mm of rubber versus 3mm of rubber plus a kevlar/aramid layer.
I certainly got thorns going through my Plus, maybe because the layer is only 5mm thick dead centre.

Are you sure they're Kevlar? Kevlar is used as a bead in folding tyres to replace heavy steel. To my knowledge the use of Kevlar as a puncture barrier within the construction of the tyre was wholly abandoned by the industry because the super gnarly Kevlar eventually eats its way through the rubber, destroying the tyre from the inside. Modern PP tyre manufs, incl. Schwalbe, use a polyurethane layer. In essence, a tyre liner, but incorporated unto the construction rather than flopping around against the inner tube.

 

[mickle]

Xpedium tyres, available from your friendly local tractor tyre supplier. Listed as available in 'Level 1', 'Level 3', and 'Level 7' puncture protection. Mathematics isn't my strong point, but I make that three levels? 'Level 1' is 0.75mm thicker rubber. Than what?

Also, i wouldn't trust a bicycle tyre manufacturer who doesn't know that bicycle tyres don't go fast enough to require a 'water dispersing' tread pattern.

 

[albion]

Are you sure they're Kevlar? Kevlar is used as a bead in folding tyres to replace heavy steel. To my knowledge the use of Kevlar as a puncture barrier within the construction of the tyre was wholly abandoned by the industry because the super gnarly Kevlar eventually eats its way through the rubber, destroying the tyre from the inside. Modern PP tyre manufs, incl. Schwalbe, use a polyurethane layer. In essence, a tyre liner, but incorporated unto the construction rather than flopping around against the inner tube.

The blurb for Marathon Plus only has the 5 mm rubber as protection. My liners are likely aramid, two colour so maybe two materials. On CST they use a specialised aramid and nylon weave, plus a 3 mm rubber layer. (1mm on level 6).
Kevlar is used in good designs. Maybe it was abandoned on cheaper rubbers? Was it just bad design?

And mathematics is not needed. I have already mentioned level 6.
At £40 per tyre the level 7 CST tyres are sold at a premium compared to Marathon Plus.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Never tried liners.

I think I put a set of Tannus brand solid tyres on my Peugeot racer in the 90s, they were a mare to fit and the ride on sub 5 miles trips was awful!

While commuting '17 to '22, my trusted set of tyres were my 38mm Marathon Cross on my often 29ered fatbike, they rolled decently and the moderate amount of puncture protection only failed me on one ride and that was thankfully not on a commute ride.

Still yet to get a puncture with my 35mm and 40mm Marathon Supremes, bought on sale along with a 32mm from Merlin ~5 years ago, which went on the Marasa hybrid commuter and have been on the gravel ebike for the last year. Think they've been replaced by Marathon Efficiency these days.

GP4Seasons aren't bad either, but they have shot up in price since the bike shortages that began in early days of covid, 28mm pair cost me ~£50 for the pair in '18 and iirc one tyre costs about that now!

 

[mickle]

The blurb for Marathon Plus only has the 5 mm rubber as protection. My liners are likely aramid, two colour so maybe two materials. On CST they use a specialised aramid and nylon weave, plus a 3 mm rubber layer. (1mm on level 6).
Kevlar is used in good designs. Maybe it was abandoned on cheaper rubbers? Was it just bad design?

And mathematics is not needed. I have already mentioned level 6.
At £40 per tyre the level 7 CST tyres are sold at a premium compared to Marathon Plus.

Schwalbe use polyurethane as their puncture barrier. Can you post a link to a tyre which uses aramid/kevlar as part of its puncture resistant layer? I can find Kevlar inserts, such as those manufactured by Panaracer, but not as a built in material. Specialised for example, used Kevlar in their Nimbus street tyres, but they gave up. Presumably, as the feedback from retailers was that they self destructed.

 

[albion]

Supremes were good commuting Kevlar tyres. I am not sure how it could stand up to the cinder track, which at the time I rode was covered in thousands of tree branch bits. There were so many that you had to ride through them.
Apparently the Supreme is much now Marathon Efficiency, likely the same as CST level 6 tyres.