A little bit rambly here. Feel free to skip right to the end and comment with your own G Line tyre thoughts.
Coming from a 700c road bike, I've found the lack of tyre options for the G Line to be a little startling. I've spent hours researching different options but there don't seem to be many (or any for that matter) opinions about it. Even more baffling to me is that 20" folding bikes have been around for a long time and I've seen a lot more of those than I have of 16" and 18" bikes.
Stylish tyres! It's a shame they suck.
I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of the stock tyres. They look great and they're reasonably comfortable but they roll terribly and I got a flat within the first 4 miles of countryside lanes. For the record, I've never had a flat on my old clincher road bike, even with cheap 18 month worn tyres. I've now set the Brompton up tubeless and so far, no flats again yet… Although the back tyre does go down to about 30psi overnight. I think I need to redo that one…
Bicyclerollingresistance.com seems to agree with my assessment that the Schwalbe G-One Allrounds are Not Great™. It's a little disappointing given just how much the bike costs but I can let it go. I figured I might go for a browse for something more road-oriented once all the snow and ice clears up.
Enter the next contender: Continental Contact Urban
These seemed to check every box for me: Semi-slick, comfortable, very fast, puncture resistant, very reasonably priced. Even Bicyclerollingresistance.com seems to wholeheartedly agree with me that this is the shit when it comes to touring/commuting tyres.
Slight problem though: They require inner tubes.
I don't care about the performance impact of inner tubes, these tyres are better than the G-One Allrounds in every way without a tubeless version. My problem is that my puncture resilience without sealant is poorer (nobody say slime istg). Some people have run Stan's in butyl tubes before but with mixed results that I'd rather not dice with on my commuter. Some people have run contact urbans tubeless with great success, but there are also a couple of stories from people who've tried and experienced catastrophic failure while on the move. That's anxiety and risk I most certainly do not need.
I'm not ruling them out, but I don't have time to patch inner tubes while I'm trying to get to work. Of course a solution to this would be the tried and true Schwalbe Marathon (and friends).
I've heard many things about these tyres. Apparently they roll fine, are mostly bulletproof (or entirely if you go for the wildly overkill plus model), have enough tread to last just about forever and so on (test data courtesy of Bicyclerollingresistance.com as per usual). They're a fine option for something purely functional, if a little dull. I'd love if the Marathon Almotion came in 20" since it seems to share the strengths of the Contact Urban while *also* being tubeless. Alas that would be too easy.
Overall, probably my best pick were it not for the fact that people seem to describe the comfort as being worse than simply forgoing the use of tyres altogether. I'd probably want to verify this in person before seriously writing it off, but it certainly weighs on my mind.
The only other tubeless 20" tyres I've seen are MTB and BMX racing tyres. BMX racers sound ok and I do like the sound of the IRC Siren Pro, but I can't imagine a tyre like that would have any focus on longevity so I'd probably go through those tyres before the sealant could dry up.
Clean look! I've heard good things about these. I might try them out for shorter fun rides sometime.
So those are my thoughts so far about G Line tyres of how good the stock ones are and what the other options may be!
Please do let me know what you think about the stock tyres and if you've found anything else that's worth sharing!
Thanks for reading
by This_guy_breaks_shit