Marathon Mondial

[Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery]

I've been using the Schwalbe Marathon Mondial in 26x2.0 lately. After a fair bit of favorable experience with the similar but substantially lighter Marathon Extreme, I was skeptical about why Schwalbe would replace it with the heavier Mondial, but i threw caution to the wind and tried it. Anyway, I now have maybe 700-800 miles on the Mondials, and they are great. They roll VERY nicely for a heavy-duty semi-aggressively-treaded tire - please note that I don't use a bike computer and haven't done rolling tests in a scientific way, but they sure feel nice on a variety of surfaces. Recently I was riding with friends and realized I was going to be late for work. I excused myself from the group, and ran full-throttle for 10 miles. One of my buddies on a skinny tire roadie-ish bike stayed with me, and said we averaged 18 mph according to his computer. That's not to say that the Mondial would be my choice for racing or brevets, but who cares (except racers and randonneurs)? As a tough, versatile all-rounder tire, it seems pretty hard to beat if you can get past the sticker shock.