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.  

Schwalbe G-One Overland Tires 700 x 50mm: Review

 Note: Guitar Ted was gifted these tires by a friend for his upcoming 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.

Schwalbe G-1 Overland 700 X 50mm tires.

 The wheels I am using for my upcoming Singular Cycles Peregrine MK4 build need tires, and when I recently saw Schwalbe has a G-One Overland tire in a 700 x 50mm size, my interest was piqued. I asked a mechanic friend about these tires, if he had heard anything good or bad about them, and he then offered to send me a set for this new build.

This was a nice gesture for this bike build I am dedicating to my son, Jacob's memory. So, I thought as long as I was going to be getting acquainted with these new-to-me tires, you all out there might also want to know about them. So, I am going to share my thoughts and opinions on these tires with you over the coming weeks and months. 

What It Is: The G-One Overland was introduced in 2022 by Schwalbe, rounding out its offerings for gravel tires. It is designed to be an all-around tire, good for pavement and gravel, dirt roads, and wherever the road goes ahead of you. They are limited to being available in 700 X 40mm, 45mm, and 50mm widths in black only. They are expensive tires, compared to many, at around $90.00-ish a piece. 

The tires have an overall "arrow", directional shape to the tread pattern. This is made up of various trapezoidal blocks which are bordered along the tire's shoulder by laterally placed rectangular knobs. The tread is tightly packed which should lend a speedier roll to these once ridden, especially on harder surfaces. 

I always like to see lateral edge blocks, like the G-One Overland has, but these do not protrude out far enough, nor are they spaced away from the central tread enough that I would think they will do much for lateral stability in looser gravel. However; they may come into play when cornering on dirt, or smoother, harder packed gravel.

Schwalbe says these Evolution range tires have their ADDIX Speedgrip rubber compound. They do feel a bit grippier in the hand than many tires do. The tires also feature Schwalbe's SUPERGROUND casing, which I cannot seem to find any clear information on. It seems to have some sort of puncture protection, but this is all I could uncover.

Of course, the G-One Overland is tubeless ready and I do intend on running these tires as tubeless. 

Interestingly, the G-One Overland is eBike certified, so I suspect a bit of the weight these tires have is due to the beefing up of the overall construction to withstand the rigors of electric motor usage. My pair weighed in at 663gm/671gm which is more akin to what I would expect from a 29" x 2.2" XC MTB tire. As a comparison, the WTB 700 X 50mm Resolute tires weighed in at 608gm/609gm each. The Resolute at 50mm also featured WTB's SG+ casing, a full protection belted tire. 

First Impressions:

The Schwalbe G-One Overland tires remind me a bit of the Pirelli Cinturato H tires I tried out a few years ago. Both are tires for similar uses and come in similar widths.If the Overalnd version of the G-One range is anything like the Cinturato H, I'd be happy. I liked those tires quite a bit and they were tough, resilient, but nice riding tires for all-around riding.

The G-One's have a nice feeling casing, while perhaps a bit on the thicker side, but again - this is likely due to the eBike intentions on the part of Schwalbe. I would be willing to bet Schwalbe could lighten these tires up a fair amount if they were not eBike rated.

As an example, the Schwalbe G-One Allround 29" X 2.25" tires I tried back in 2019 were weighed in at 553gm/556gm. Quite a difference there with a tire which was actually larger in volume than these G-One Overlands. So, I think my guess as to why the casing is thicker and why the tire is heavier is partially due to this eBike certification.

But if this makes the G-One Overland tires tougher, I am okay with this. My intentions for the Peregrine Mk4 is that the bike will be an all-around exploration machine and tougher tires are welcomed in this scenario.  

My expectation is the tires will roll pretty fast for what they are. I think the closely spaced tread might be a cause for concern with chipped gravel getting lodged in between those trapezoidal tread blocks. We will see about this soon enough, I hope. 

The Peregrine Mk4 is in transit to me as of this writing, so until this bike gets built up, we will have to wait for any updates on the tires. 

Stay tuned..... 

Note: There is an embargoed press release coming this morning at 9:00am CST.