Marathon Plus on a 20" - hard to install?
 

after Yet Another Flat on my Swift I'm either getting Marathons or Marathon Plus tires.

I hear the Plus is wicked hard to install. is that true for small wheels as well? I plan to swap them for studs on icy days, so that matters a bit.

thanks much

That depends on the rim. I can install and remove the Plus on my Birdy wheel with no tools.

Yes, they are hard to de-install - tried once without success - but now have some metal core tire levers, so we will see in future.

As far as performance goes - no flats after 2 years on our custom Fridays. Worked well today on about 1/4 mile of dirt and rocks on ride out to Surfer's Point - normally paved bike path is in process of being moved and re-built.

Ours are 1.35" width. Seem fast enough, too.

Lou

jur,

You are a better man than I am!!! I watched your video when you first posted it, but never have any luck getting the bead over the edge of the rim.

Guess I should watch it again.

Lou

If I were swapping my Marathon Winters and Marathon Pluses every time the ice came and went, I think I'd go nuts.

They're about average, in my experience. Not a horrendous pain, but enough of an annoyance.

I just put the Winters on when the freezing weather comes and take them off when it departs.

thanks folks ... I had enough trouble getting Vittoria Randoeunners (or however you spell them) on a larger bike -- my hands are weak -- so I'll avoid the Plus.

Pair of regular Marathons waiting for me @ REI this afternoon

Amen on the Vittorias. Was just struggling with them last night. Whew!

glad to know I'm not alone. I blew four tubes getting the tire on the front rim! luckily the rear rim worked the first time, but only b/c I had a buddy to help me.

Don`t worry,once the have been on a while they are much easier,on and off.Until then watch the video on spa cycles site,just to check you are doing it right ;-).

whoops,here`s the link. http://www.spacycles.co.uk/

There are variations in the actual size of 20"rims - possibly that is contributing to some of the problems encountered in mounting Marathon Plus tires?

you need to have a hand of steel as i tried doing this and i can't. tire levers came in handy for me. it's maybe because it's 20inches that's why its harder ??

I do have Marathons on a Brompton.(16 inch). They were really hard to install. The plus should be even more difficult.
On my Airnimal Joey (24 inch) it was an easy job to install the Marathons.
Yours are 20 inch, so it should be somewhere in the middle, I suppose.
But there is only one way to be sure, . . . Yes, that's to try it.
Good luck!

My technique with getting tight tires off , is use 3 tire levers, pull them down as one.

Var Tire jacks to get them back on , work 2 of those towards each other.

yes. that is what i have been doing - with 3 tire levers but about an inch to 2 inches apart.

when i attempted to install my marathon pluses on my 20" kinetix comp wheels for my dahon speed P8, they were WICKED hard to get the bead over the rim. i completely busted two plastic tire levers before i finally got out a steel screwdriver, and even then, trying to take care not to puncture the tube, i had to position my body over the lever end of the screwdriver balancing on the wheel itself and put just about all of my body weight on the screwdriver before the last bit of bead would finally climb over the rim edge.

without question, these were the toughest, most stubborn tires i've ever had to mount on any rim.

the marathon pluses that i got for my 26" wheel MTB were considerably easier to install.

yikes, Steely Dan. glad I picked up the non-Plus Marathons this afternoon. I'll report back on how the install goes later this evening

well the Marathons were no treat to install. rear wheel was fine actually, but had to get my son to help me pry the front one on. pretty glad I didn't go for the Plus

http://www.parktool.com/uploads/thum...48_430x390.jpg

I have also left the tires in the sun to warm them up a bit which seems to help.

Aaron :)

I bent two Park levers trying to get the Marathons off my Downtube recently outside a bike shop. I can do it at home with 3 or 4 Pedro's yellow levers, but it's a battle. The shop then broke two levers, and had to use two of the long Pedro's ones! Carry good levers, my children.

same thing with the kojaks that i installed on my TR. i have to actually use 3 levers. taking out is easy but putting them on is a struggle. i tried doing it with hands but i'd rather do it the hard but easy way.

Yes, it was VERY difficult for me! Took two days and in the end it was #$%^ this and I went ape on it.

Oddly enough, the same thing happened with Marathons 700ccs on my hybrid.