They're good tires, have just a couple downsides IMO, and one bad experience.

The Good: Durability is great, don't shred when subjected to small gravel or the occasional rock. Decent flat protection.
The Bad: Pretty aggressive tread pattern for a road use tire, larger sizes have very large gaps since the tread pattern is scaled up in larger tires.
The Bad Experience: Ordered a set, they where badly out of spec and wouldn't seat on any rim I tried, they where so over sized that they'd never seat, and would blow out when air was added. Bad items happen to every manufacturer, shame these got by quality control though.


I had two cut, one on my wife's bike (26x40C) and one on mine (700x35C) by some idiot. I noticed the puncture protection layer was molded in terribly in my wife's tire, it was very thin in places, and much thicker toward the outer edges of the tire, leaving the center with little protection. Mine was nearly uniform, but thicker in the tread pattern, and thinner in the gaps, due to being molded I'm guessing. That being said, they're good tires, I'd buy them again on sale.

I do prefer Vittoria Randonneur tires though, for a number of reasons: higher TPI, folding that's far lighter (pro version), and a much tamer tread pattern that is more suitable for road riding. They fall between the HS 368 and Marathon pro in terms of flat protection, but are a faster and smoother rolling tire than both. Granted they're heavy compared to non flat protection tires, but it's a trade off.

P.S. Kevlar is good for wider, objects like rocks, terrible for thin pieces of glass that cut through the fibers. Tires with a denser rubber compound (think Marathon Plus) are the most effective for stopping flats, again IMO. Overall tire thickness is also key, which makes for a brick of a tire though.