Commuting - Even Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tires...

...aren't immune to the Evil Friday the Thirteenth curse!

This morning, after completing almost all of my 6 mile commute, I felt the rear 700x28 Schwalbe Marathon Plus go flat. Fortunately, I was only a few blocks from where I work, so I just walked the bike there.

I work as a mechanic in a motorcycle shop and am the first one there in the morning by several hours... so, I put the bike up on the hydraulic motorcycle work table and took the rear wheel off. I found a nail... about FIVE INCHES LONG that had passed through the tread area and punctured the tube in two places. The nail was very dark and rusty which is probably why I didn't spot it while scanning the road for debris.

I patched the tube and remounted the tire. Fortunately, the combination of a Koolstop Tire Jack I bought recently and some of the commercial tire mounting fluid we have at the shop for mounting motorcycle tires made it not too tough to get the tire on this time.

Again, I don't see this as a failing of the Marathon Plus. This was the biggest nail I have ever pulled out of *any* tire (and I see lots of them on motorcycles at the shop), and it would have flatted the tire on a Greyhound bus.

The rest of the day was a breeze by comparison. ;-)

At least it didn't go through your rim and mess that up.

my rear Plus is still flat-free but the front i've taken to running my front 700x28 Marathon with a tuffy liner inside of it. Seems to be a particularly brutal season for tribulus this year -- yesterday, after riding through the worst-infested block on my commute (San Tomas southbound between El Camino and Benton) I pulled FIVE thorns out of the front. I stopped quickly enough that they were all still attached to the seed pod and none of 'em had made it through to the tube...this time! Today I intentionally rode an inch right of the paint and didn't pick up any spiky hitchhikers.

Well, that's two flats for me on the rear Plus, but in both cases they were big nails (2" and 5") that really would have flatted anything with air in it... Armadillos, Tuffy liners, none of those are capable of deflecting stuff like this.

That's why I've decided to keep running the Plus tires through the winter, and carry two tubes, patch kit, pump, tire jack and tire irons.

It's difficult to prove a negative, but I believe these tires have protected me from several flats already from smaller stuff that would have flatted most tires, so they're worth it to me. I've picked lots of glass and miscellaneous stuff out of them during my weekly maintenance sessions.

When the days get longer and the weather gets drier I will probably take them off and put on something lighter and faster until the rainy season starts again, then back on they'll go.

At least it didn't go through your rim and mess that up.

Yeah, it went in at a very glancing angle on axis with the rim. It didn't tear up the Velox rimstrip either.

Wow
Hard to imagine how a nail that long got into a poistion to puncture your tire.
I guess your front tire must of kicked it up so it was almost standing on end and your rear tire impaled itself.

If any tire could of resisted that flat, i bet it would be a rough ride :)

How good are the Schwalbe Marathon tyres as far as grip, wear and speed go. I have Tioga City Slickers 1.25 at the moment and they are pretty quick and seem to last ok but the grip isn't wonderful.