Schwalbe G-One Overland Tires 700 x 50mm: First Impressions

 Note: Guitar Ted was gifted these tires by a friend for his Singular Peregrine Mk4 bicycle build. Guitar Ted is not being paid, nor bribed for this review. Schwalbe is unaware of this review and have no input in the content here. All opinions are Guitar Ted's. 

The Schwalbe G-One Overland tires were introduced back in early September. Due to having to wait for the bicycle I wanted to mount them on having to be shipped and built up, this post was a bit delayed. By the way, if you missed the intro, you can go back and read it HERE. 

Mounting & Initial Measurements: 

The Schwalbe site doesn't give us a lot of information on the casing for this tire, which is dubbed SUPERGROUND, by the way. I do know it has some level of puncture protection. Handling this tire, and many other tires with puncture protection in the past, has led me to a couple of conclusions.

First, despite whatever SUPERGROUND actually is, I believe it is a bead-to-bead puncture protection layer in the casing. I say this because the casing is very stiff, and this made the tire very difficult to mount. Maybe I am incorrect in this guess, but I think not. 

As I have mounted hundreds of different types of tires in the span of a 30+ year career as a bicycle mechanic, I can say these G-One Overlands rank high on the "difficult to mount" range. By the way, I was using a Shimano GRX carbon wheel, so this isn't some narrow, odd carbon rim.

 Secondly, as stated, due to the stiff nature of the G-One Overland tires, the casing felt plasticky, and not very rubber-like, despite the tread feeling grippy. This tire reminds me a lot of the Hutchinson Touareg tires, which also had a bead-to-bead puncture protection layer. I had to run those tires at significantly lower pressures to get a ride feel I wanted and the Hutchinsons took a while to stretch to their designated width as well. Likely due to the not very pliable, or stretchy puncture protection belt. I expect a similar experience with these Schwalbe tires. 

Once mounted, the tires aired up easily with a floor pump with the valve cores installed. This was a surprise as I would have guessed an air compressor would have been necessary to set the beads due to the very stiff sidewalls. However; it could be that the G-One Overland's tighter fit, (which also made these difficult to mount, by the way), allowed for the ease of setting the beads in place.

I set the tires up at 30psi each and after a few hours they measured at 49mm and 49.4mm each. This is a good sign for the Overland tires to reach their stated width of 50mm eventually. 

The casing has a rounded look on these 25mm inner width GRX rims. Again, very reminiscent of the Hutchinsons. The center tread section should be speedy due to this casing shape, and unless my pressure setting is too low, I will be expecting a speedy roll on hard pack or pavement.  

Coming Up:

I'll be spending a lot of time with the bicycle the G-One Overlands are on so these tires should get a fair shake before Winter sets in. I think I'll learn everything I can about the Schwalbe G-One Overland tires by the time the leaves are off the trees, so expect a final verdict around that time. 

The Singular Peregrine Mk4 mounted with Schwalbe G-One Overland tires.

 I probably will also post a mid-term update once I have several rides on these tires, so look for this update coming in soon. Until then, all I can say is I can totally see why mechanics or average riders who do their own tubeless set ups may not like these tires much from an installation standpoint. I used this mounting tool to set the Overlands up with and without it I would have been very frustrated. Besides the difficulty in mounting, the airing up and setting of the beads was a cakewalk. So, some bad, some good there. 

Stay tuned for more soon.