Harhir

I have a recumbent bike (BikeE) with a 20" rear tire. I have been using Schwalbe Marathon Plus but I am going through a set of tires a year. Pretty bad wear and even damaged sidewall at one point. I am a heavy dude and with the seat almost all the way back plus some loaded panniers the most weight sits on the rear tire. I think I have been stretching the load capacity of 80 kg (180lbs) quite a bit on these tires.
I am trying to find a tire that can easily handle over 200 lbs. But it is hard to find any load bearing information. I heard people talking about the Maxxis Hookworm but I cannot find any capacity information, with the exception that it is rated for 110 PSI vs 70 PSI for the Schwalbe tire. Most Pedelecs use 20" tires which have to able to carry the weight of several passengers. Any recommendations on 20" tires with high load bearing capacity?

honcho

What pressure are you using in your rear tire and how many miles / km are you riding? I would recommend Schwalbe Marathon Mondial but they are not available in 20" (406mm) Other than the inconvenience of changing tires, unless you are seriously strapped for cash to buy a replacement tire, once a year replacement shouldn't be horrible plus you can try different tires.

We're partial to Schwalbe on our recumbent tandem but it's 26" in the rear and 20" in front. We've had a wire bead failure on a tour in Alaska but since then we replace before a big trip as a precaution so they typically only have about 1500-2000 miles before replacement and there has always been plenty of tread left.

John_V 

Not sure what the load bearing capacity is but my wife has been using Schwalbe Tryker 20" tires on her ICE recumbent trike. She's on her second set. The first set she had (original tires) lasted her just over 4,000 miles.

tomtomtom123

I thought wider tires with a larger cross section of hollow space are supposedly able to carry more weight. If you're using the 1.75" wide Marathon Plus, then you could look into the 2.15" wide Big Ben Plus, which has Greenguard, like the normal Marathon. Rated to 95kg. Air pressure is 2-4 bar. I pump it to around 2.8-3.0 bar. I used to have 19mm wide rims, but switch to 26mm wide rims, and noticed that I needed lower pressure due to larger cross section with the wider rim.

https://www.schwalbe.com/en/tour-reader/big-ben-plus

You could also look at the regular Big Apple 2.00, if your fork doesn't allow 2.15". But the Big Apple tread is not so deep, and supposedly has less grip, but probably has a little better roll. Big Apple Plus with Greenguard is supposedly slightly inferior to the Big Ben Plus. You can look at the schwalbe website for the data.

Dan Burkhart 

I was ready to suggest the Maxxis Hookworm even before I got that far into your post. I ran them front and rear on my long wheelbase recumbent, and I'm a hefty dude. They held up very well through a few self supported road tours.

tomtomtom123

Wow, is that 110 psi / 7.5 bar max pressure for the 1.95 hookworm accurate? Seems super high for such a wide tire.
Anyway, the 20" Schwalbe Big Ben Plus has lasted at least 2 years for me on paved roads, without puncture. Average 80kg ride load, 2000km per year. between 2c to 35c temperatures. It still in good condition.

Also, small diameter tires will wear out faster than larger diameter tires, since you'r spinning more revolutions to travel the same distance. For example a 20" tire will contact the pavement 1.3 times more often than a 26" tire to cover the same distance.

Dan Burkhart 

Yes it is rated ti 110 psi which is a lot for a tire with that much volume and sidewall area.. I always ran it lower than that for fear of bulging the rim walls. I loaned the bike out for a charity ride once, and forgot to mention that fact. The guy I loaned it to read the number on the sidewall of the tire and pumped it to 110. Sure enough, it bulged out the Velocity Arrowheat rim..

himespau 

I know it's only 20" diameter, but that must have been a lot of pumps to get enough air into that wide of a tire to get up to 110 psi.

tomtomtom123

Well, I don't think it's right to inflate it to 110 psi. When I tried to inflate the Big Ben Plus (rated 2-4 bar) to 4 bar (60psi) it's already extremely hard. I once tried to inflate to 5 bar (73psi) to seat the bead, and it was so hard that when I sat on the bike, there was almost no deformation to the tires. The tire also expanded so much that it started to rub against the fork.

Even the Marathon Plus 1.75" is rated to maximum 5 bar (73psi).

Harhir

Thanks everyone.

I don't have enough clearance for 20x2.15. 20x1.95 barely work. I will look at the other options from Schwalbe and Maxxis and I will also put me and the bike on a bathroom scale to just get some real numbers. Of course loosing more weight this year would solve that and a few other problems... ;-)

tomtomtom123

If the tires are working fine for you, and the only problem is that they wear out fast, I don't see a good reason to change them. The Marathon Plus tires are only $20-25 each, depending on where you buy them. The regular Marathon is only $12-15 each. So getting a new pair every year isn't that expensive. It's like the cost of 5 to 8 meals at a cheap restaurant.

I don't get punctures with the greenguard, or the blue, within the first year or 2 of the tire's life. I don't know if there are any other tires with the same level of protection, as I only ever used Schwalbe tires. But I wouldn't imagine that there are too many other brands and models that match it.