Today our schwalbe marathon supreme failed 30 miles from nearest town during a 1 month tour. The sidewall ripped along the rim at the bead, not rideable. Tire was 1500 miles old. Managed to get a ride after a few hours. Hopefully we can find a 559 tire. Depressing.

Make sure your brake pads (if you have rim brakes) are properly aligned parallel to the rim and not making contact with the tire. I had a new Schwalbe fail recently. I had just adjusted the dish of the rear wheel and neglected to check the pad contact afterwards. One pad hit the sidewall and the tire blew out on the first downhill when brakes were applied.

Thanks, but I am very careful to align brake pads away from tire. The tire failed.

Ouch. I had that happen on a 20" Schwalbe with about 1700 miles on it - riding fine, then thump thump THUMP KABOOM. And no evidence of contact with the brake pads.


Also non-fixable - no amount of tape or boot material would prevent an aneurysm above 5 psi. Had to get a ride in.

I carry a spare tire on most tours. Not a replacement comparable to what I am rolling on, but one good enough to last at least a few hundred miles to get to a good bike shop. And two tubes, with some self adhesive patches.

With 26 inch tires getting rare, when I tour on one of my 26 inch bikes I most certainly carry a spare.

The 26 inch one I use as a spare is a light weight mountain bike tire with not much tread, folding bead, 47mm wide, 430 grams. When I tour on 700c, I carry a folding 33mm wide cyclocross tire, 290 grams. These might not last as long as my tour, but would at least keep me on the road until I can buy a good tire.

A month ago the tube on my errand bike got a puncture. Patched it. Couple days later rode that bike to the gym a mile and a half away. When I came out of the gym, the tire was totally flat. My errand bike rarely goes more than five miles from home, I do not carry a spare tube. Walked the bike home. The tube had a 7 or 8 inch long split. Part of the tube was a bit too thin from the factory and from the looks of that split, I am sure when it deflated, it was likely quite loud.

Two years ago on a tour with a friend, he had brand new tires with a lot of puncture protection. And he put in tire liners to make sure. Day three, he had a tube split along a seam in the tube. Down to only one spare.

That is why I always carry two spare tubes on a tour, even though most of my tours do not even have a single puncture. It is like buying insurance, you hope you never need it but do it anyway.

Carry 2 spare inner tubes, but thought that newer schwalbe tires would not catastrophically fail. Never again, will now always carry a spare folding tire... Depressing.

I don't have any out-of-town tours planned so I don't typically carry a spare tire, but do carry 1 (preferably 2) tubes. The exception is Bike Patrol duty for big events like El Tour, where I carry a spare light 26" street tire and a used folding 700 road tire, along with oodles of various tubes. I typically go through a bunch of the tubes helping others, and more often than will end up installing the 700c tire for a grateful rider somewhere along the route.

I have had Schwalbe fail. Not often (knock on wood) but have had a sidewall failure. So on any distance I've carried a spare folding tire. On the longest trips I had two spares but that was also to have a replacement when the rear tire wore out.

I've had multiple Marathon Supreme tires succumbed to gashes. I don't consider them a touring tire. More like a commuting tire at best.

Schwalbe tires have a 3 year warranty. I recently had a defective new Schwalbe Marathon (not Supreme) tire. I bought it last year but didn't mount it until about 10 days ago. There was a bump with every revolution of the wheel. I took the tire off and examine the inside of the tire, the tube, and the rim. I saw nothing unusual. I remounted the tire and there was still a bump, and the tire appeared to have a bit of a bulge to one side with each revolution. I removed it and put on the other new Marathon tire I bought last year and there were no problems with that one.

The Schwalbe website has a warranty form you can fill out online. They want some photos for 3 designated things: Product name, Production Code, and photo of defect. The Production Code is a white mark on the inside of the tire. Each photo cannot be more than 2 MB. I filled out the form and submitted it. About a week later I got an email saying it would be covered under warranty. I have to get the replacement from their online store and the email contained a warranty code to use. My tire is out of stock right now but they're supposed to send me an email when it's available again.

https://www.schwalbetires.com/warranty/

On my touring bike, I've had excellent results with the Marathon Supremes, but none the less, if I have room, I always carry a foldable 28mm Gatorskin.
(and at least 2 tubes with patch kit)

My wife and I use Supremes and have fair luck with them. I also use the basic Marathon which I think is more durable.

This happened the first day I rode on it. There was a lot of debris in the road. It made it home with a boot. The sidewalls are the Supreme's weak point. It is a moot point because Schwalbe does not make them anymore.

I always carry a foldable, light weight tire in case of such emergencies

I normally pack on the heavier side of the debate about what contingencies to bring on a tour and what to trim to save weight. I even carry spare brake and shifter cables, which I think most do not.

The first tour I did with my Lynskey, that bike has replaceable dropouts held in with a pair of small M4 screws, the drive side one also is the derailleur hanger. And one of those screws started to come out, was damaged, I needed to replace it. Fortunately, my spare hanger in my spares bag had new screws.

Several years ago, after the second time when I gave someone a spare bolt because they lost a rack bolt, I now even carry a tiny bottle of thread locker (like Locktite) on bike tours. When I fly somewhere, I bring my S&S coupled bike, I even have to remove the racks to pack that. And I use a thread locker on my rack bolts, so carrying a bottle of thread locker with me is a logical thing to do, something most other bicyclists would never dream of. Some bike shops do not even have a bottle in the entire shop, so it is not that common, I think most bicyclists do not know what it is. Two years ago in a campground, another bicyclist had some troubles with his bike, I was chatting with him and when he said "What I really need right now is some Locktite." I started laughing because I had that tiny bottle in my toolbag. At 0.2 fluid oz, it is pretty tiny.

On the rear of my light touring bike, my very old Hutchinson Globetrotter is about two thirds worn out. Decided for my tour a year ago, it was too risky to ride with that tire, so I put on a new Mondial for that tour.



When I got home, put the old Hutchinson back on the bike to finish wearing it out.

My brake pad puncture was immediately above the bead. You can see the arc of abrasion fore & aft of the puncture. The pads looked fine eyeballed with the levers relaxed after my dish adjustment. Not so after I applied the brakes on the first downhill upon leaving my house. Duh!

I've had cheap tires fail over the years but once I started using Schwalbe and Continental higher-end tires, never.

how old was the tire, how many kms or miles on it, photo?
all that doesnt change the fact that its a drag for you.

My experience with various Schwalbe tires, and really all good to great quality tires of any brand, is that something like this is extremely rare.
I put one of my super old supremes on one of my bikes recently just to not use some of my newer tires and have a faster nicer tire on the bike, and it slowly developed a slight bead issue, but frankly, that tire is at least 9 years old and has multiple fully loaded tours on it over all kinds of road surfaces in many many countries, so not a surprise to me given the mileage on the tire.
The Supremes sidewall characteristics is what gives that tire such a cushy, efficient ride quality. A real example of Supple life, but one has to keep the thin, flexible sidewall in mind--just like with any higher end supple tire, Rene Hearse or whatever.

touch wood though, I still have a pair of narrower Supremes 1.6 inch that I only have on for road trips on good roads.

About 10 years ago I tried some folding Marathon Supreme's, 700 x 28C I think they were, and almost immediately I was getting punctures so after a couple of weeks they were straight into the bin. Not surprised they stopped being made.

Polar opposite of my experience:
My set never had a flat on numerous long trips-- riding down through the southern part of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica
-another trip through about a third of Mexico
-across France
-and other riding, but never had one flat on the trips. Four panniers, handlebar bag, extra stuff on rack

One factor with any tire, but especially a supple thin walled one, is riding up against a sharp rock or something, so a certain amount of user error can be part of tire failures.

Out of curiosity what size tire , rim width and load? Front or rear? The Supreme has a very supple sidewall between the bead and under tread reinforcement. I noticed the sidewalls don’t hold up well for a heavily loaded rear wheel but did make for a fast riding puncture resistant tire.

Same here. Used them touring and commutng but not what I’d pick where sidewall durability was needed. One thing I noticed on the 35x700 size was that if the psi was low there was a squirm in handling different than other tires when psi was low. Also sidewalls started to go before treadwear required replacement.

Lee, I rode my first set of Supremes a lot with four panniers plus extra stuff on long extended trips, but was very, very aware of the thin sidewall and also appropriate pressure for the bike+rider weight.

re squirm-- I would say that any supple tire is always going to exhibit more squirm if under inflated for the bike+rider weight. I found it pretty easy with a small hand gauge to dial in my pressures and I really have to say that with Supremes, my touring bike handled better in corners than any touring bike + tire combo that I have ever ridden over 30+ years of touring.
A combination of tire width, proper pressures and the rolling+ ride characteristics of the tires were all factors in my bike handling so well on curvy downhills, which I love taking at a good comfortable clip.

I'd say that it comes down to the chosing "horses for courses", and any thin sidewalled, supple tire may not be the best choice for sharp rock gravel roads, or for riders who habitually rub the rear tire against objects without realizing they do it.

but we have tons of tire options out there, and decide what trade-offs we want to make for the given use.

I agree with this. I always carry a spare tire on tour now. I have not yet had to use it, thankfully, but it's insurance. It's just a used tire that's not used-up, and triple-folded so it's compact enough to put in a pannier. The likelihood of a tire failure on roads is small, but the impact would be huge, especially if not near any towns with a bike shop. It's all about mitigating risk.

some skinny tires pictured. wider tires are more comfortable and more secure.