Harryburgundy":1vwzzcx1 said:
They are not the tubeless models are they?
The Officially Tubeless model doesn't come in 26":
http://www.schwalbetires.com/bike_tires ... n_Almotion
I'm running mine with inner tubes for now and thinking of maybe-possibly doing a ghetto tubeless set-up later.
I just did the first test ride on them. The tyre pressure gauge on my pump had gone, so I had to set them to 15% deflection by eye and might have been wildly out, and I was also testing a new grip/bar set-up that confused the hell out of me, but first results seem very good:
- Very fast and very comfortable on the road. If you try "gliding" on smooth tarmac then, once you drop too low for air resistance to be much of a bother, you seem to carry on forever.
- Completely took the buzz out of gravel and didn't really seem to take a speed hit. But gravel is funny stuff and a lot depends on shape and size, and I won't be really sure how good they are until I try them on other gravel tracks. (Fortunately I have a lot of them around.)
- Great cornering on the road (big surprise) and seem good on gravel and grass too - but I wasn't pushing it because of the new bar set-up
The only disappointment was that I'd hoped for more of a balloon-tyre suspension effect over over ruts and bumps. But this is very pressure sensitive and I might have the pressure way too high. (Makes note to buy new pressure gauge.)
Tomorrow I'll try them on my most hated gravel climb - it's only the equivalent of a couple of flights of stairs, but it consists of especially evil anti-traction gravel that goes flying at the slightest opportunity. The only way I could get my crosser up it was to use Newton's Third Law.
Edit: I remembered I bought a half-price Fenix light a couple of weeks ago, so went out to try it out. The Almotions were just as good on the gravel as wide knobblies - they spread the weight smoothly instead of throwing gravel around and I zoomed up without a misplaced chip of stone.
For now my overall verdict is that they're a great tyre at the bike24 price, but that you'd have to be very fussy about tyres indeed to pay UK prices for them; that they're probably faultless on the road and can do quite a lot off it, but that I'm a long way from being able to say where the limit is.
