Has anyone seen or ridden the new Schwalbe Al Grounder?
I am wondering how it might serve as a replacement for the Duro Crux (or similar) for anyone that realizes they spend as much (or more) time on pavement as/than dirt.
It is heavier than the Duro Crux by 135 grams, which may make perfect sense (and a quick internal understanding of just how heavy 135 grams feels) for some, but for anyone about to ask Alexa to convert 135 grams to ounces, it is 4.46 ounces, or a little over a quarter pound, which is roughly the weight of a fast-food hamburger patty. All that, to say I don’t think I would notice the extra weight.
However, it does look like it might be much stiffer that the Crux (or similar), and I don’t know how that heavy tread will work for unicycling (road and Muni).
If weight is a concern as it is on some of my builds, you might also look at an XC MTB tire. It would come in similar sizes and usually weighs 600-800 grams depending on the brand. They have a shallow tread pattern and I find they perform really well off roads if you’re not in sand or mud, and have lower rolling resistance on the road.
My LBS have me a recommendation that a 300g difference is where you’ll really start to notice a meaningful difference in weight outside of racing where seconds off your time matters.
Looks like a nice tire if you’re mostly pavement but still want a bit of offroad capabilities
Don’t know about this Schwalbe, but I quite like my Surly Extra Terrestrial 2.5" wide. It’s happy on the road, and can take some offroad. It has rather stiff sidewalls which means you can drop the pressure pretty low in the trails. Bike tourers love it because it can handle a lot of terrain, and is happy on tarmac.
A burger patty from the world’s biggest fast food chain weighs about 45g. So this additional weight of 135g you are looking at, isn’t one but three of those burger patties.
Well, according to the website weightofstuff.com, it seems that you are correct! I always thought that a “Quarter Pounder” (Royale Cheese in some parts of the world?) at that fast food chain was given the name due to the patty weighing 4 ounces, or a quarter pound. Thanks for the correction!
I still like the look of the tire.
I now need to ponder the question, “Is the new tread pattern worth carrying, rolling, pedaling, an extra three hamburger patties?”
+1 for the Extra Terrestrial. I have the 2.4 inch and it does great on ~80% of terrain. Super loose ground, approaching consistency of sand doesn’t work too well, neither does deep snow, ice, or deep mud, but on tarmac, gravel, dirt, grass, snow up to about 2 or 3 inches, and a little mud it does just fine. Also, it only weighs 720 grams, so about 300 less than the Al Grounder, but who knows, maybe the Al Grounder is doing something with that 300 grams that other tires don’t.
I think that originally your assumption is right and they started with such big patties in the burgers in fast-food chains. However, nowadays, you will find quarter-pounders only in regular restaurants’ burgers but not fast-food ones…
McDonald’s has always used tiny patties for their regular burgers, at least in the 50+ years I have been familiar with them. The quarter pounder is so named because it is supposed to be a big burger.
Seems like a decent tire. I’ve looked around a bit more and Schwalbe has several alternatives:
G-One
Super Moto-X
Hurricane Performance
Seems like wide smooth tires are a growing segment. (Probably due to E-bikes being heavy and people not really caring for aero or rolling resistance with them) I imagine other brands will also have some similar offerings.
