jrickards

I seem to recall having Schwalbe Marathon Mondial tires on a previous bike, several years ago. Although the puncture resistance is good/great (reportedly, never had it tested on my bike), I found the rubber to be hard and I seem to recall that it is slippery when on wet surfaces (particularly painted areas on the road). I realize that painted areas are more slippery than unpainted but I seem to recall that I was easily able to get the rear tire to spin when starting from a stop.

I don't recall ever being able to spin my Continental Contact Tour tires.

Has anyone else had the same experience?

The reason I'm asking is that I might be buying a new touring bike (for commuting as well) in the spring and the one I'm considering comes with these Schwalbe tires.

JaccoW

Schwalbe Marathon is the name of a line of tyres, ranging from the skinwall Marathon Supreme, the commuter Marathon Plus and one of the lowest rolling resistance tyres at the moment that is the Marathon Almotion.
I count 15 different models at the moment with the Marathon name.

That being said, there have been some significant changes in this particular model the past few years from what I remember. Up until 3-5 years ago you couldn't find them new anymore.
How long ago was this?

I'm currently using a Supreme and a regular Marathon on my commuter and I've had no problems with slipping in wet conditions. Not sure about anybody else's experiences.

Worst case scenario you swap them with something else if you don't like them.

bpcyclist

Used the Marathon Plus for a little while and did not seem to notice that, but hey, maybe I'm weird. I am glad you brought up the paint thing, though, because that stuff can be deadly. Even the pros go down on paint from time to time. I really try to steer clear if I at all can.

tyrion

I agree. As I remember Mondials are kind of slippery on smooth hard surfaces. I think they have 3 different compounds on the tread: super hard and long wearing in the centerline, a little less hard off centerline, then softer further from centerline.

RubeRad

I had a pair of Mondials, I found that they wore very quickly compared to other marathons. Like the central scalloping was pretty smooth after like 6mo/maybe 1000mi?

Sci-Fi

Depends on how much rain fell to clean much of the gas/oil off the asphalt. Hard to stand w/o falling, even when wearing oil resistant shoes, on wet heavy commercial traffic use asphalt, too much oil, use other routes on rain days or ground fog. The painted lines and especially manhole covers will be slippery regardless of tire compound or who made the tires. The worst wet surface are those Terrazzo (sp?) surface/tiles outside movie theaters. Very easy to spin the rear tire even with the lightest power used on that surface. Seen more than a few that fell hard/lose control when trying to turn or brake at their usual speed.

In my experience, stay away from the "wire bead" Mondial tires, the folding Mondial tires are fine. IMO, after the tire molding process is complete, it appears the workers or machine hangs the tires too soon that causes a noticeable side tilt/bump after you mount the tires. Non of the usual tricks, like leaving the tires out in the sun to allow the tire to straighten out. I bought 2 sets and 50% of those tires needed to be replaced. Buy local if you want wire beaded Mondial tires.

No problems with other Schwalbe wire bead tires, Big Apple. Fat Franks, Marathon Plus, etc.

The folding bead Mondial comes with the Travel Star compound and the wire bead Mondial comes with Schwalbe Endurance Compound (which is used on many other Schwalbe tire lines). The Mondial was supposedly to replace the XR, but the tread thickness is not the same, which many had complained about since it has no protection belt/flat protection belt and thus didn't last as long as the XR.

To be honest, the SBC (Schwalbe Basic Compound) lasted longer than the "Endurance Compound". Even my Marathon Supreme triple compound tires lasted longer and those were mounted on my utility bike.