Schwalbe marathon on Brompton

schmekzoid

Am I the only person who cannot seat a Schwalbe marathon tyre properly on to a wheel. I know these tyres are right
royal pain in the bum to get on to a wheel in the first place, but on top of this: 1. they do not sit straight on the rim no matter how much wiggling, over pressurising, soaping of the rim I do. The tyrre therefor bobs up and down and the wheel rotates. These tyres seem to be poorly manufactured and aren't true and 2. the tyres are too wide for a Brompton frame-they claim to be the same size but clearly aren't. The original Brompton tyres are about 30mm deep the Schwalbe are about 35mm and there is less than a 5mm tolerance for a wider tyre between the cross bar between the chain stays. The result is that the tyre now rubs on the cross bar as well as bobbing up and down. I thought I'd pull the wheel back a bit to move it away from the frame (spinning the spindle locating washers on the axle the other way round) but this doesn't work either, as this only results in the rear upper pulley not engaging with the frame mounted derailleur. I'm really not impressed, I would really appreaciate some help or guidance on this so I can get this sorted. I'm on the verge of simply buying a genuine Brompton tyre adn getting rid of the pair of Marathon tyres - I'll never be buying these again! :x

TheEnglishman

I followed the YouTube vid for getting Marathon Plus's on and they worked first time. Admittedly I used a bit of tyre soap, but my excuse was that I'd had hand surgery relatively recently and my hands aren't that strong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mTECOVZVqU

schmekzoid

Cheers that's a very good and useful video and I'll give it a go to get the tyre seated on the rim properly, however it address the problem of making the tyre fit into a frame that apparently has vitually no tolerance to accept a deeper tyre.

veryslowtwitch

Might be a duff batch. Mine went on no problem.

Are they definitely correct tyre size and not some weird variant? It may be worth comparing the numbers on side wall with official Brompton spec to ensure you have exactly the right size

Alan

t4tomo

I run schwalbe marathons on my Brommy, found them to be much better in terms of grip and durability than original brommy tyres. Yes they are a bit of a pain to get on when new, but I've had no clearance issues etc. double check you have the right size. I'm 300 miles away from mine at the moment so can't give you the size.

schmekzoid

Thanks for all the replies. Yes they're definitely the correct size tyre. They're not plus either which I believe are deeper than the standard tyre. This is an older Brompton, don't know how old mind. Has the geometry changed at all on these bikes? I have another Marathon tyre, I think I'll try that one. Perhaps the one is just a dud tyre - I can't be so unlucky to have bought two and if that doesn't fit either .........

t4tomo

schmekzoid wrote:

Thanks for all the replies. Yes they're definitely the correct size tyre. They're not plus either which I believe are deeper than the standard tyre. This is an older Brompton, don't know how old mind. Has the geometry changed at all on these bikes? I have another Marathon tyre, I think I'll try that one. Perhaps the one is just a dud tyre - I can't be so unlucky to have bought two and if that doesn't fit either .........

the only geometry change was to handlebars etc when a choice was offered. steel and titanium forks etc are all same shape as they have ever been.