I like the Greenspeed scorchers, but I keep on getting flat tyres. Three flats in three weeks. This is because the roads I ride are covered in glass. So I’d recommend if you get these tyres, get the kevlar lined ones. But I have moved over the Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres. I will see how they go.
They are a smaller (width wise – 16″ x 1 3/8″ (37-349) against 16″ x 1 1/2″ (40-349) ) but also have tread. I had been locking up the Scorchers in the wet and sliding a little on the concrete roads. I have only been riding once with the new tyres, so I cannot really report on them. The new tyres definitely make a lot of road noise. The Scorchers were very quiet. I changed the tyres last night. But I managed to break a tyre leaver putting the last tyre on and also punctured the tube. So today I took them around to Mick Mazza’s and he fixed the tyre for me. He used a different technique and did not use tyre leavers to put the tyre back on. This is when I puncture the tyre, so I am going to try and learn his technique. I did not purchase new tubes with the tyres. It turns out I should have and the tubes in there at the moment are a little too big. Mick did not have the smaller size. He said it used to be common, but almost no one uses it any more.
I bought the tyres from Michael at Fuse Recumbents in Canberra. He was very helpful and answered all my questions before I committed to making the purchase. Here is some of the info he sent relating to my two types of Tyres.
- For Puncture resistance worst to best: Scorcher – Scorcher TR – Marathon Plus
- For rolling resistance worst to best: Marathon Plus – Scorcher TR / Scorcher
- For weight heaviest to lightest: Marathon Plus – Scorcher TR / Scorcher
- For Durability shortest-lived to longest lived: Scorcher TR / Scorcher (est 3000km) – Marathon Plus (est 5000++)
The new tyres should be good, I have run all three tyres on my GT3 over the last 3 years and 15000 km and use the marathon plus now as my prefered road and trail tyre. I found,like you that the scorchers punctured more plus the time between being good and failure to when they were unusable was less than 50 km. This meant they would be ok at the start of a ride and be unusable part way through. This meant long rides required a spare tyre as well as tube to be carried. The scorchers are a great tyre for low rolling resistance and racing.
Keep enjoying the GT3
Fredinver, Thanks for the comment. I have only been riding a week. This is what I have found so far. ☺
I spoke with Michael at Fuse Recumbents again and he said that the tubes I have will work fine in the marathon plus tyres. So I have not purchased new tubes.
I am still locking up the wheels and now I occasionally spin the back wheel when it is on a metal surface in the wet. I think the wheel locking problem is partly due to me using the inside wheel, partly because I have a habit of only using one break and partly because there is quite a mismatch now between when the left brake and right brake kick in with the same tyre leaver position. I think the latter is due to me using the left break as the hand break. So I will start using both. This should even things up.