Certainly, the Marathon Plus have the harshest ride of all the Schwalbe's touring tires. But if you're buying a Marathon Plus, you don't care: you're buying a bombproof, quite literally indestructible tire that you can put on your tandem or super-loaded touring bike, and leave the spare tubes, patches and tire levers at home forever. The Schwalbe Marathon rolls smoother than the Plus, but I, for one, am going to look into the Racer. If they roll as nicely as Schwalbe claims, they might just be the tires for my commuter bikes.