Cycling costs

Semi slick tyres

My daily commute is ~9 miles each way on a mix of road and cross country. I use a hardtail mountain bike fitted with semi-slick tyres.

My biggest problem is riding across Greenham Common. The tracks are gravel which produces vast quantities of razor sharp flints and since the common is nearly 2.5 miles long, I spend 5 miles a day riding on these flints. They shred tyres.

Track on Greenham Common

Until recently I'd been using Bontrager hardcase tyres but I've recently swapped to Schwalbe Marathon Plus. Here's some stats on tyre life

Tyre	front/rear	life (miles)
Bontrager satellite hard case	rear	1658	lots of holes through it
Bontrager satellite hard case	front	4284	sidewall bulge
Bontrager satellite hard case	rear	3067	lots of holes through it
Bontrager satellite hard case	rear	2735	bulge on tread
Bontrager satellite hard case	front	3428	bulge on tread
Bontrager H2 hard case	front	2852	tread delaminated
Bontrager satellite hard case	rear	3122	bulge from cut, lots of holes through it

Here's some data on how often I got punctures with the Bontrager tyres. Note that these tyres had slime tubes fitted as well as slime strips between the tyre and inner tube. Did the slime strips make a difference? Sure did, you could seem daylight through all the holes in the tyres!

The Pie chart shows the ratio of front to rear punctures (14% front, 86% rear).

The graph shows the number of punctures versus the miles on the tyres (6 tyres worth of data). For example, between 0 - 300 miles on the tyres, 1 only got 1 puncture, wheras with between 500-700 miles on the tyres I got three punctures.

It seemed that Bontrager stopped doing the Satellite Hardcase tyre and replaced them with the H2 Hardcase. I was really unimpressed with these tyres, a front delaminated after only 2800 miles.

Delaminated Bontrager H2 hardcase tyre after only 2800 miles on front wheel

The Hardcase tyres were replaced with Schwalbe marathon plus tyres. These are also being used with slimed tubes and slime strips between the tyre and tube, i.e. puncture data directly comparable to the Bontragers.

So far the M+ tyres have done 1455 miles without a puncture. This is slightly more than the maximum distance the Bontragers went without a puncture but is not yet statistically significant, i.e. more data is needed from the M+ tyres before its possible to say they are more puncture resistant than the Bontragers - it could be a fluke. However, what's also noticeable is there's no flints embedded in the M+ tyres. Every couple of weeks I had to go round with a sharp point and dig flints out of the Bontrager tyres.

Its not all good news with regard Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres though.

Bontrager satellite 26x1.5	560g
Bontrager H2 26x1.5	500g
Shwalbe marathon plus 26x1.75	950g

Bontrager H2 26x1.5	£21
Shwalbe marathon plus 26x1.75	£30

Also, the grip is not as good as the Bontragers. As I'm coming home I have to turn off sharp left half way down a steep hill. There's a very convenient surface change on the tarmac. In the dry and on the Bontrager tyres I could wait till the surface change, then hit the brakes very, very hard. So hard in fact that that the back wheel lifts at ~20-25mph . Every time I thought I wasn't going to make the corner, yet every time I did. There's no way I have the confidence to brake that hard on the Schwalbe tyres.

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