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review

Schwalbe G-One Speed MicroSkin TL-Easy Folding Road Tyre

9
£64.99

VERDICT:

9
10
Brilliantly capable big-chamber tyres for fast riding on a wide range of surfaces
Weight: 
408g

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Back in 2015 we first reviewed the Schwalbe S-One as it was then called, and it was a revelation: fast, grippy, comfortable. As a 30mm tyre it wouldn't fit in every frame, but our advice was: If you can fit 'em, buy 'em. Fast forward to 2018 and I'm riding the new 40mm, 650B G-One Speed, which is every bit as good, and highlights the benefits of Road Plus, as we're now contractually obliged to call 650B, as well as any tyre I've tried.

  • Pros: Fast, grippy, comfortable, good puncture proofing
  • Cons: A bit expensive (but worth it!)

The S stood for Special: it was The Special One. And it was and is a special tyre: masses of grip, loads of comfort, faster rolling than any big tyre has any right to be. It's great. This 40mm version is a welcome addition to the range, and Schwalbe's website suggests that 50mm and even beach-friendly 60mm versions are in the offing.

> Find your nearest dealer here

The G-One Speed is built around a Microskin casing, to make it tubeless ready. Microskin is a fabric layer that's added to the carcass that helps it to hold air without a tube, especially at high pressures. It doesn't make the carcass stiff or heavy like a butyl layer can: these G-Ones feel very flexible and the sidewalls are especially compliant. Underneath the triple compound OneStar rubber tread there's another fabric layer, the V-Guard, which protects against punctures from road detritus. Of course tubeless tyres are supposed to seal around small holes, but the less of them you get in the first place the better.

Fitting the G-One Speeds to a set of carbon Reynolds ATR wheels was a cinch. I used a Bontrager TLR pump and got both of them up first time, without having to resort to the Airshot, which is the second wave of tubeless attack round here. A bit of Schwalbe's Easy Fit Mounting Fluid on the beads helped to seal them.

> Tubeless tyres: Is it time to ditch the inner tubes?

Once up, they held air very well. I find that you have to check pressures more frequently with tubeless tyres than with inner tubes, but these G-Ones are among the better ones I've tried.

The stated pressure range for these 40mm tyres is 50-70psi; the maximum I put into them was 60psi, which for a carcass that big feels pretty rock hard. They were better at 50psi, where they felt more comfortable without seeming to sacrifice any speed. And they have speed in abundance – these are quick tyres. On a rolling treadmill in a lab I'm sure they'd give away some ground to a race-bred 25mm slick but on British lanes, with poor tarmac, and rain, and mud, they're every bit as quick. You don't have to worry about picking your line, and you're a lot less beaten up at the end of a long ride.

I've taken the G-One Speeds down the crappiest, thorn-strewn lanes I can find, and bunged them into potholes with gay abandon. That's where they shine. My unscientific testing (looking at times on Strava, using the same bike with different wheelsets) concluded that the 40mm 650B tyres weren't measurably slower than the 30mm 700C ones. Obviously there are a lot of factors I can't control there, but the take-home is that these feel like road tyres, not like balloon tyres. They're fast, but they're also comfortable.

> Why you should choose wider rubber

If you're heading to more varied terrain you can drop the pressure. I've run them at 30psi on mixed on/off-road rides and they offer loads of grip and comfort on towpaths and the like. They're not aggressive enough to cope with proper singletrack, but for more graded gravel riding they're excellent. The dimpled tread offers prodigious levels of grip on most surfaces without feeling like it's robbing you of much speed, even on the rare stretches of smooth tarmac round here.

And I haven't had any punctures, no matter what pressure I was riding them at, or what surface I was on. Or, at least, any that have resulted in a tyre going down. And it wasn't for want of trying either.

People have been banging on about 'bigger is better' for a long time now: remember when it was about 25mm versus 23mm? The reality now, though, is you can get tyres that feel fast, are supremely comfortable and offer brilliant levels of grip that are much, much bigger than that. You won't be able to fit this 40mm tyre into a road frame, but if you have an all-purpose bike that you want to predominantly ride on the tarmac, and you're looking for something fast, supple and grippy, look no further.

Verdict

Brilliantly capable big-chamber tyres for fast riding on a wide range of surfaces

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road.cc test report

Make and model: Schwalbe G-One Speed MicroSkin TL-Easy Folding Road Tyre

Size tested: 40mm wide

Tell us what the product is for

Schwalbe says: "Unleashing profile and breathtakingly fast – especially when large volume counts. As a 30mm wide road race version with V-Guard protection, G-One Speed is a tire for the real tough jobs. It can be ridden as a handmade tubular or with the most modern Tubeless Easy technology. But it is also a guarantee for maximum speed in the extra-wide 60mm execution – of course not only at the fascinating Dutch beach races."

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

Schwalbe lists:

Size: 40-584 (27.5 x 1.50, 650B)

Construction MicroSkin, TLE

Puncture protection: V-Guard

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
9/10

Well finished, easy to fit.

Rate the product for performance:
 
10/10

They're all the things you want from a tyre for tarmac and graded surfaces. Fast, grippy, comfortable.

Rate the product for durability:
 
7/10

The compound is the same as the smaller G-One Speeds; in my experience it's good for about 3,000-4,000km on tarmac.

Rate the product for weight (if applicable)
 
7/10

Light for a big 650B, but not light when compared to a smaller chamber tyre.

Rate the product for comfort (if applicable)
 
10/10

As comfy as any road-orientated tyre I've tried.

Rate the product for value:
 
5/10

Not cheap, but on par with other top quality tyres. Given the performance, they're worth the money.

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

Brilliantly well.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

Fast, grippy, comfortable, no punctures to date.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

A bit spendy, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes

Would you consider buying the product? Yes

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes

Use this box to explain your overall score

They're great tyres. Go and get some. It'll cost a fair bit, but they're worth it.

Overall rating: 9/10

About the tester

Age: 44  Height: 189cm  Weight: 94kg

I usually ride: whatever I'm testing...  My best bike is: Kinesis Tripster ATR, Kinesis Aithein

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: Every day  I would class myself as: Experienced

I regularly do the following types of riding: road racing, time trialling, cyclo-cross, commuting, club rides, sportives, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mountain biking, Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling, track

Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

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17 comments

Avatar
Dominic Schulz | 5 years ago
0 likes

I use the 50mm tubeless speed version on my gravel bike, and while you can feel almost a kilogramm of more rotational mass on the wheels+tires compared to my roadbike, once up to speed those things roll just so effortless at around 3 bar (45psi). often i am even a bit quicker with the gravel bike on less well maintained tarmac because you just fly over potholes and cracks compared to the road bike. grip also is insane in the dry. and when i leave the road, i lower the pressure to around 1.8-2.2 (25-35 psi) bar and they grip much much better than you would except beeing basically a slick. of course, they dont like muddy corners, but thats to be expected.

highly recommend them. 

Avatar
jaspersdog | 6 years ago
0 likes

Absolutely LOVE these tyres from a speed, comfort and grip point of view, however I can't agree with the longevity claims. Coming from Continental 4 seasons they are quicker, more comfortable and definately a lot grippier but I had to replace them after about 1200 miles. That was on very bad roads and some multi user paths. I've bought another pair because for me those 3 attributes trump the longevity issue. I'm running the X-ones and X-ones Bites on my Cross bike and they are outstanding.

Avatar
Miller | 6 years ago
2 likes

Loads of life left in that tyre. Can't even see the carcass threads.

Avatar
Zermattjohn replied to Miller | 6 years ago
0 likes
Miller wrote:

Loads of life left in that tyre. Can't even see the carcass threads.

Ha ha, true! There was also a 2-3cm slice in there, which though repaired and plugged up with sealant was too big to allow the tyre to hold more than about 40psi and leaked air constantly. Got fed up with it.

Avatar
Zermattjohn | 6 years ago
0 likes

If they wear as fast as my 35mm G-Ones you'll be shelling out for new tyres every 10-12 months. Very poor durabiilty, won't be buying again.

Avatar
CXR94Di2 replied to Zermattjohn | 6 years ago
3 likes
Zermattjohn wrote:

If they wear as fast as my 35mm G-Ones you'll be shelling out for new tyres every 10-12 months. Very poor durabiilty, won't be buying again.

 

What mileage? 

Ive always gone with the mindset, when riding two wheeled vehicles, sod the wear rate, get the best grip, feel from the tyre.  It could end up saving your life or prevent a fall. 

Falling off hurts-price that up?

Avatar
Zermattjohn replied to CXR94Di2 | 6 years ago
0 likes
CXR94Di2 wrote:

 

What mileage? 

Probably 150-ish miles a week, about 70/30 on/offroad.

Avatar
CXR94Di2 replied to Zermattjohn | 6 years ago
0 likes

.

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CXR94Di2 replied to CXR94Di2 | 6 years ago
0 likes
CXR94Di2 wrote:
Zermattjohn wrote:
CXR94Di2 wrote:

 

What mileage? 

Probably 150-ish miles a week, about 70/30 on/offroad.

 

Nearly 8000 miles a year, well in my book that is bloody good mileage for a grippy tyre.  If you want longevity over everything get the Marathon plus

 

Schwalbe themselves give the G One speed an below average for longevity, where as the marathon plus has the best life span for mileage.  8K miles out of a  below average wear tyre, is brilliant, the marathon plus will probably last 15000 miles or more.

Avatar
Zermattjohn replied to CXR94Di2 | 6 years ago
0 likes
CXR94Di2 wrote:

Nearly 8000 miles a year, well in my book that is bloody good mileage for a grippy tyre.  If you want longevity over everything get the Marathon plus

 

Schwalbe themselves give the G One speed an average for longevity, where as the marathon plus has the best life span for mileage.  8K miles out of a average wear tyre, is brilliant, the marathon plus will probably last 15000 miles or more.

Sorry, should have been clearer. The Schwalbes are on my gravel bike, which in reality is my winter bike nowadays. So yup about 150 miles a week but not all year, probably only really from Nov-April. I put them on last April , and they rear was replaced in December. So that was basically 3 months of use. I've replaced it with a Hutchinson Overide and that seems much better. I'd recommend the G-One if you're 90-100% offroad, but tarmac seems to really eat into the tread.

 

Avatar
Bendurance | 6 years ago
0 likes

They are 47 Euro from The German online retailers, which is much cheaper than Compass Extralite’s. Weight is obviously for the pair and they are great tyres run tubeless. I can’t imagine why anyone would run tubes in a 40mm allroad tyre. 

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jhsmith87 | 6 years ago
0 likes

The 30mm tyre is awesome. Fast, grippy & thus far no punctures! 

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paulrattew | 6 years ago
0 likes

Schwalbe list the weight for the individual tyre as 450g (https://www.schwalbe.com/en-GB/road-reader/schwalbe-g-one-speed.html). From experience, they often overstate the weight a little bit.

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kevvjj | 6 years ago
0 likes

817g???? that's gotta be for a pair, surely?

 

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BehindTheBikesheds | 6 years ago
0 likes

Heavier than the 38mm 700C/622-40 Schwalbe Almotion by a chunk, in fact the TL Easy variant of that tyre is slower than the non tubeless variant which is even faster than the Voyager Hyper.

Currently running a 40mm Corratec tyre at 50/45 rear/front and I'm 100kg, tyre weight is 328g and even with a std wide tube it's still only 455g and the sidewalls are lovely and supple.

Really can't see how the sidewalls on this are giving a comfortable ride given how much stiffer they need to be compared to a non tubeless variant . Has the tester actually ridden 40/42 mm folding road tyres before? Think the tester is blinkered by the tubeless mania giving it 4.5/5 when value is only rated at 5/10.

 

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IanEdward | 6 years ago
0 likes

817g?! That's heavier than a Schwalbe marathon isn't it? Definitely heavier than a 38c Vittoria Hyper Voyager + tube.

Worth it I suppose if you want to run MTB pressures!

Avatar
reippuert | 6 years ago
0 likes

Overpriced compared to a way faster, similar wear proffed, smooter, ligther tyre from Compass.

Way overpriced compared to a similar fast, ligther and more bullit proff Panarace GK tyre.

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