Originally Posted by
Trevtassie
Nope, probably easier if you are carrying a heavy load because you'll have to run really high pressures in the 1.5" which will then ride rough. If you want tough with lower rolling resistance, then the 2.0" Mondials are probably the go to tyre, especially if you need to do light off road or heavy gravel because their better flexibility will give them better grip on uphills and downhills.
It's always a trade off, the maximum puncture resistance is with thick rubber under the tread, but this increases drag. Tyres like the Mondial use a thin high density fabric to do almost the same job.
Actually, the theory behind the thick rubber on tires like the Almotion is that, since it's a very flexy material, it has a relatively small hit to rolling resistance relative to the amount of protection it provides. The drawback is that it adds more weight than a thin puncture protection layer made from a tough material.
I'm not sure if this has been characterized in real-world testing, but hysteresis tests on steel drums seem to side with the reasoning. On bicyclerollingresistance, for instance, the Marathon tires with thick flexy belts tend to see their resistance increase much slower with decreasing pressures than the ones with thick tough belts.