Originally Posted by
knobster
Only tire I've tried for off road and on road is the Specialized Borough CX. I'd say that this works ok off road as long as no climbing is involved, but they are quite slow on the road.
The Borough is *notoriously* slow. It's the cost of the high degree of puncture protection combined with relative cheapness - you get through using thick rubber, which shoves rolling resistance up.
I've heard great things about the Marathon's. Might be worth a shot. If there exists a tire that could do good on both surfaces (nothing extreme offroad) then just going for a ride as the OP originally asks would be very easily possible.
The Supreme should at least as good as the Borough off road and much faster on it. The Extreme should be quite a bit better at both, but not quite as fast as the Supreme on tarmac. And you shouldn't have to give up any puncture protection - the technology is just better than the Borough. They do cost quite a bit more though!
Edited to add:
Schwalbe have just brought out a new sib for the Supreme, the "Dureme". For on/off road I'd go with this over the Supreme if I didn't choose the Extreme.