Schwalbe Romy Trail Pro Soft Radial Folding TLR

The Schwalbe Romy Trail Pro Soft Radial Folding TLR steps into the shoes of the old Hans Dampf as a versatile trail tyre. It hits most of the right notes, delivering dependable traction over hard surfaces and holding its own elsewhere, and it rolls rather quickly, too. However, more demanding trails highlight the tyre’s limits, and thanks to the casing’s lack of support I’m yet to be convinced by the radial hype.

Schwalbe Romy Trail Pro Soft Radial Folding TLR – Technical details

Yes, the renowned Hans Damf is no more, but fret not, as it has been replaced by the Romy. Schwalbe has crafted this bit of rubber for versatility, making it suitable to be mounted onto the front and rear wheels for trail duties, or as a rear with something more aggressive up front for those after a fast-rolling yet bitey setup.

Within its knobs, there’s clear inspiration from the burlier Albert. It follows a similar two-three-two layout, but the centre tread is wider spaced and lower in profile. The shoulder knobs are large and fairly pronounced. The combination is shaped to provide little rolling resistance but plenty of cornering traction.

Schwalbe promises that the Romy is ‘lighter than many enduro tyres,’ which is a funny comparison to make when you’d expect a trail tyre to be lighter anyway. Especially as the Romy is actually at the heavier end for a trail tyre, and heavier than a fair few enduro tyres too.

At 1,166g it’s weightier than Maxxis’s Dissector G2 with an EXO+ casing (1,033g), and it’s six grams heavier than Cast’s Protagonist with a seriously tough HardWALL casing. It’s also heavier than a Maxxis Assegai in the EXO+ casing if the claimed weight of 1,146g is accurate.

The Romy is available in a decent range of options, with 29in and 650b sizes available alongside 2.4in and 2.5in widths. The tyre can be picked up in Gravity or Trail constructions, with or without the radial casing, and in Soft or Mid compounds.

On test, I have a pair of Trail Romys with the radial casing and Soft compound rubber. I’m running a mixed wheel size, by the way – 29er at the front, 650b at the back.

Schwalbe Romy Trail Pro Soft Radial Folding TLR – Performance

My test with the Romy has been an interesting one, as it performs excellently in some areas, and has been a bit of a pain in others. Seating the tyres (in both wheel sizes) was one of those painful times.

Getting the beads up onto the rims requires some serious hand gymnastics. Each time, as I neared the very last bit of the bead, the tyre would just undo itself, freeing itself from the rim and pinging back into the central channel. The tyre just wanted to stay flat, rather than assume the much preferred tyre shape.

After shedding literal blood, sweat, and tears, I reached for my CushCore Bead Bro to hold one portion of the bead in place while I forced the rest of it onto the rim. After that, the tyre conformed to my kinetic persuasion, and inflated just fine.

Once on the rim, the Romy’s profile is fairly round, but the pronounced shoulder knobs give it quite an aggressive stance.

The Romy lives up to its claims in the rolling speed department. Because its centre tread is low, pedalling it around is pretty easy going. It dispatches climbs pretty quickly, and generally I’ve had a pleasant time rolling on a pair of these.

But because that centre tread is widely spaced, and its knobs are large and widespread, there’s plenty of traction to be had – especially on hard surfaces. It’s a consistent-feeling tyre as it transitions from centre tread to shoulder knobs, and that big, tall shoulder has a lot to give when pushing it through corners.

It’s no slouch over softer terrain, either, especially in the dry. It manages to hold its own and not become completely overwhelmed in loam, but as its tread isn’t especially deep, it loses its confidence somewhat. That said, if my riding was mostly on harder terrain with a mix of soft, I wouldn’t go swapping the Romy for something more aggressive any time soon. It’s a compromise, as all good things are.

In wet, very soft conditions, the Romy struggles to provide solid traction, but those kinds of conditions are beyond its remit, so no harm done there.

Although the shallow tread makes for rapid rolling, it’s not without a bit of a sacrifice. It makes sense for a trail tyre, but on terrain that’s a bit steeper and covered in a film of loose filth, braking traction wanes. Now, I’ve been riding with some pretty punchy brakes – Hope’s GR4s – but the Romy doesn’t quite have the bite to make the most of them. Braking isn’t as abrupt or as consistent as I would expect.

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In such scenarios, the Romy is better kept to the rear wheel to compliment something with more bite up front.

I’m also not completely sold on the radial casing, at least on a tyre like this. It does conform to trail imperfections much better than more traditional casings, making things more comfortable, at least, but it’s not as stable or supportive as regular casings, even at higher pressures.

I started with my usual pressures of 19psi front, 22psi rear. After finding myself bottoming out the front tyre fairly frequently at speed, and noticing serious vagueness in the rear tyre, I upped the pressures to 21 front, 25 rear. That was the happy place for the front (though I still had some bottom-outs when travelling faster) but I had to increase the rear tyre’s pressure even more to achieve the stability I’m after. And I’m not a particularly hard rider.

Under hard cornering the casing can fold a little, which had me double-checking the rear for burps or loss of pressure, though it never actually did. And when climbing it could feel as if it had lost pressure, although checking with a gauge showed it hadn’t.

I have ridden the Gravity Radial casing, which has similar properties, but it’s noticeably more supportive at lower pressures. So if your riding is a little more progressive than more mellow trail centre tracks, I would recommend the Gravity casing for that extra support.

Schwalbe Romy Trail Pro Soft Radial Folding TLR – Verdict

At £78 the Romy is pretty standard, as many performance mountain bike tyres sit at a very similar price point. The Maxxis Dissector MaxxGrip G2 EXO+ is £74.99, for instance, and it’s one I’ve been very impressed with – it uses a similar tread pattern to the Assegai, and it performs with similar consistency. Its casing is more stable, but it’s only available for 29-inch wheels, which is a bit of a kicker.

Specialized’s Butcher in its Grid Trail casing and T9 rubber is very appealing at £50. It’s an excellent tyre that performs more confidently in a greater range of conditions, and although it uses a lighter trail casing it’s more supportive. It’s a hair lighter too, at 1,044g.

For me, the Schwalbe Romy has brought a good heap of benefits, thanks to its wisely designed tread which works excellently in dry and loose-over-hard terrain. On softer terrain it’s definitely rideable, though it begins to show its limits and – while its fast rolling is absolutely appreciable – its lack of braking traction on more demanding trails leaves something to be desired. Ultimately the Trail Radial casing isn’t for me, and it you like to mix trickier downhill stuff into your trail riding, it may not be for you either.