Schwalbe Marathon Almotion - initial review

[MartinFarrent]

I'm very pleased with these.

I put a pair (38C) on my new road touring bike, replacing CX Comps that were 2x 100g lighter. The Almotions roll so much better that they are noticeably faster. Additionally, they are extremely comfortable. Obviously, I can't say much about durability yet, and the same goes for puncture protection. Since I almost never ride in inner cities where the streets are paved with broken glass, I don't know all that much about puncture protection anyway.

On paved surfaces, the grip is excellent. The same goes for light offroad use and wet roads. Mounting the tyres on Mavic T520 rims was easy and required no tools, not even the gloves I normally use to avoid blisters.

I weigh about 75kg and have pumped the Almotions up to 4 bar for everyday use (including heavyish shopping loads). Using Schwalbe's light-weight SV 18 tubes, I do find myself losing pressure quite noticeably over periods of about ten days. So I have bought a tyre pressure gauge for touring - something I find less necessary for bikepacking tours of similar length, due to the much lower pressure in the Nobby Nics on my MTB.

My ideal was a tyre that would roll fast on asphalt roads, yet wouldn't frighten me into lowering speed excessively on gravel. The Almotion comes pretty close. In fact, I would rate its offroad grip significantly higher than for the CX Comps, even though the latter are cyclocross tyres.

The Almotion is an expensive tryre, but you can generally find good deals (around 30 euros) in German online shops.

[MartinFarrent]

Just one caveat I might add:

For their type, these are fast tyres. But they are also relatively heavy tyres - so they don't accelerate fast. They might not be ideal for urban cycling with its frequent interruptions, because it takes a while or an effort to recover from loss of speed. So if you like to feel quick and nimble in town, this probably ain't your best choice.

Personally, I live in a village near a fairly major town and do my shopping in neighbouring villages. When I go to town, I take the bus. So the bike these tyres live on is primarily built for touring, training or shopping on paved rural roads.

As I said earlier, the Almotions are fine on dirt roads too - but they wouldn't be my first choice for a predominantly offroad tour. Firstly, I seek technical challenges when touring offroad, meaning a strong focus on adrenaline trails and on 'real' bikepacking with a mountain bike (Nobby Nics on that). Secondly, if I were ever to take a non-technical dirt road tour, I would just don some 1.75" Smart Sams I happen to possess. But long, technically unchallenging dirt road routes are somewhat rare in Western Europe - and it's even rarer to find one that couldn't be modified to add some more exciting track. The Camino de Santiago comes to mind, but it doesn't attract me.

[Nicolas72]

Hi, I used the same tyre with dimensions 28"x2.15 on my MTB...mounted on my wheels DT Swiss X1700 (Tubeless), the tyre isn't tubeless ready but I fill 250ml of Notubes latex and it works, 2.5 bars keep all the comfort of this german "balloon tyre" and roll very well. As you said tyre is heavy, I used it for travelling and not for commuting or city.


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