Trail Tire Tech Trickledown

When Schwalbe released its gravity-oriented Radial tires a couple years ago, it seemed like I was surrounded overnight by people who had suddenly been brainwashed into mouthpieces for Schwalbe. Every single person I knew who rode the new sneakers raved about the traction, the support, the riiiiiiide. Since I have about as much need for DH-weight tires as a submarine does for a piano, I wallowed in my FOMO and assumed that the wonders of Radial rubber would never trickle down into something that I might actually be able to use in my weight-concerned trail riding endeavors.

But wait! Hold the phone! Enter the new Schwalbe Romy. This is a new trail tire that is designed to replace the Hans Dampf and Nobby Nic tires, and act as a bridge between Schwalbe’s lightweight XC tires and the full-on heavy-duty gravity tires. Available in the full gauntlet of Schwalbe rubber – Race, Trail and Gravity families, Schwalbe and Schwalbe Pro lines, Soft and Mid compounds, 2.4 and 2.5 widths in 27.5 and 29 diameters, Diagonal and Radial casings – the Romy is intended as a trail all-rounder analogous to the Dissector in MaxxisSpeak, or the Eliminator in the SpecializedSphere. This, so to speak, is my jam.

Upon seeing the Romy Radial in the rubbery flesh for the first time at the Sea Otter, I feverishly placed an order, and in due course received a pair of 29×2.4 Romy Trail Pro tires in soft compound, 1050 grams claimed weight. There was also a 29×2.5 Romy in the shipment, along with a pair of 29×2.5 Albert Radials. So far, I have been focused on the 2.4 Romy Radials, so that’s what we are reviewing here.

Out of the box, the Romy Radials are close to the claimed weight; each 2.4 tire I received weighed 1066 grams, which is about par for the course in tires this size and intended use. By comparison, the Continental Magnotals that I couldn’t fall in love with weighed 948 grams apiece, and the Specialized Eliminator 2.6s that I could fall in love with weighed 1030 grams. A MaxxTerra Dissector with an EXO+ casing weighs a claimed 1045 grams. So, the Romy is absolutely in the tough-trail casing all-rounder ballpark there. Mounted on a 30mm i.d. rim and inflated to 24psi, the Radial Romy measures a hair over 2.3” wide edge to edge. While this is shy of the claimed width, it’s also sorta par for the course. Profile is Schwalbe-familiar, similar to Albert/Tacky/Mary in being moderately rounded and buttressed with hefty side knobs. In the case of the Romy, center knobs are a millimetre or two shallower than found with the rest of the family to facilitate faster rolling and calmer manners on hardpack. As described by Schwalbe, this “balanced tread pattern delivers a playful riding feel and lets your bike roll fast without compromising control and grip.”

Okay, these are not technically true “radial” tires in the sense of how we differentiate bias- from radial- construction tires in the automotive world. Cam went into that back when he reviewed the Magic Mary Radials. But, boy howdy, they sure do feel different.

Some context is required at this point: The terrain here in Colorado’s banana belt is predominantly rocky and hard. This can manifest as anything from big granitic slabs to blue-groove hardpack with kitty litter sprinkled on top. Lots of rocks, both fixed and loose. A good amount of decomposed granite/sand/sandstone depending what neighborhood you find yourself in. Lots of flat corners that get progressively more blown out throughout the riding season. There’s also a ton of high alpine riding that is usually more chocolatey in composition but never really anything as greasy as the PNW. So, around here, Maxxis MaxxTerra and Specialized T7 compounds do pretty well. That’s caveat number one. Caveat number two; I am pretty comfortable with Maxxis EXO+ and Specialized Grid Trail casings. I weigh 190, like to run pressures in 2.5ish tires down to around 22psi – I push in to turns but don’t generally rip knobs off and try not to murder my rims in the rock gardens. I consider 1000 grams to be about the “most acceptable compromise” weight for the characteristics I seek in trail tires. That means enough sidewall support to handle my weight and riding style, at the pressures that let the tire do what it needs to do, and a decently balanced tread and compound that rolls well but can still bite without getting torn to bits.

Given the above context, these Romy Radials may be my new favorite tires. Here’s why.

They are quiet. Like, eerily quiet. This is evident when rolling out on pavement in the audible sense; the usual knobby tire hum is strangely subdued. But once on dirt, that quietude remains. It’s not just an auditory thing, but an actual feel. “Damped” is the word that comes to mind. Planted. I started at 28psi. I decided on this because everyone told me that I should expect to run 4-6psi more than I usually would for this size tire. For my weight and my riding style, “usual” puts me at around 22psi in the 2.5-2.6 tires described above. For most 2.4s I run about 24psi, unless we are talking paperweight XC rubber, and then I often end up around 28psi or higher to get the sidewalls to hold up in corners. So, 28psi usually feels real bouncy and not very tractable. But in the case of the Romy, it felt quiet. Calm. Tractable. Smooth. Composed. Normally, I would attribute this kind of calmness to bigger tires, not ones that barely measure 2.3” wide. Normally, I would think tires this quiet would feel glued to the ground in terms of rolling resistance. The Romys (I keep wanting to refer to them in plural as “Romies”) roll just fine.

I kept adding pressure. By the time I got to 32 psi, they began to feel a bit squirrely in the loose stuff, so I backed down again in 2 psi increments. At 24 psi, the traction was unreal, especially when squishing up onto angled slabs or creeping down the same, but the sidewall support in hard turns was becoming vague. Throughout the range, the traction remained predictable, and the tires offered a ton of read as I sought out my personal sweet spot. And the quietude remained impressive. The lower the pressure, the better the tires behaved on slabby rocks and in loose chunder, but at the low end, cornering support suffered, and I began to feel the rim on hard hits.

At the high end of the pressure experiment, the cornering support was awesome, but it came at the expense of edge knob feel in the slabby stuff. Higher pressure equates to less carcass deformation, and at 28 psi and higher, that meant the edge knobs began to get overworked on angled slabs and would start to lose traction. Higher than 28, going up into the 30s, the damped feel began to degrade somewhat – mostly evident as deflection in chunky loose conditions. The tires never felt nearly as skittish as I would have expected 2.3” tires pumped up to 32psi to feel, and this indicates a wide range of terrain and condition-dependent tunability. For me, and I need to clarify that bit in terms of where and how I ride and how much I weigh, the sweet spot ended up being around 26psi. Here, I felt I was getting the best out of the carcass in terms of edge knobs adhering to the slabby stuff, as well as riding in this sweet pocket of super-calm predictability while still having enough support to slam into rocks and squish into corners without worrying about the tire folding over or getting a hatchet chop to my rims. Throughout all of this, I kept feeling as if I was reaping the traction and damping benefits of wider, softer tires, without the spongy drawbacks that sometimes come along for the ride.

At 102 USD / 150 CAD apiece, the Romy Radials are not exactly the cheapest pencil erasers on the block, but such is the modern name-brand tire reality. I can’t speak to the long-term lifespan of the Soft compound, being only five rides in, nor do I know how well the carcasses will hold up. However, I am impressed enough already to leave them on and ride them into the ground. I hope it takes a good long while, because they feel that good.

Schwalbe Romy Radials