Review on 🚴 Schwalbe Cx Comp Bicycle Tire by Joe Jordan

I bought a pair of these tires to use on a motocross bike which is a type of flat bar road bike with lots of gears that I use on sidewalks and trails. No mountain bike trails, but "Rails to Trail" and gravel roads. I wanted tires with a more aggressive tread pattern than the slick street tires that went with them. These tires meet all requirements. The tread pattern is aggressive, with a scalloped V-shaped pattern in the center and a scalloped "grip" pattern on the edges. Kevlar layers under the tread provide puncture and crush protection. Wire beads hold the tire on the rim. Perfect? Yes and no. The tires themselves are great - just what I was looking for. Installing them on floppy disks was more complicated than it should have been. I will explain. The installation work, which should only take a few minutes, made me give up after half an hour. My bike has 700C x 32 tires and these 700C x 38 tires are no problem. The problem, however, is that these tires appear to be slightly larger than the bead diameter. If you put the bead in the groove of the rim and inflate the tube, the bead will pop out. If you push the bead into the rim where it came out, the bead will come out at a different location along the rim. OK, deflate a bit and put the bead back in, pump up a few pounds and the bead will pop back up. I gave up and called my bike mechanic. When I said I was having tire installation problems, he laughed and said he would help. Together with 4 hands we managed to get the bead into the rim without it popping out. Success! Not really. Tire/Tube Pumps - 20psi is still good, 30, 40, 50psi is still good. At 60psi - a sharp crack - like a pistol shot - the flange flew out of the rim and the tube exploded. I had a spare tube so we tried again. Another 20 minutes and we installed the tire/tube in the rim groove. This time we pumped up to 55psi and left. This roughly corresponds to the minimum recommended pressure of 3.5 bar for this tire. The recommended maximum pressure is 85psi - I would never try to reach that. Now we come to the rear wheel. We figured out the "system" so we could install the track/tube in about 10 minutes. Re-inflated to 55psi and exited. Road test (15.5 miles) the next day I had my phone ready in case I needed a rescue :-) At 55psi there was no problem on pavement or dirt/gravel roads. The problem was more with my rims than my tires. A bike mechanic buddy thought the same thing, so he inspected and measured my rim somewhere between the stock and stock tubes. He also examined the tire for the break and concluded that the tire was undamaged. His conclusion was that my rim was fine - he measured the correct diameter compared to other 700c rims. My rims weren't smooth on the inside, they were rolled, creating a groove for the bead to sit in. Putting a Schwalbe CX tire on top of another 700c tire found that the diameter (bead to bead) is very close. This is a tricky measurement and it would be easy to tell if one was the same size or slightly larger or smaller than the other. I'll keep using them and hope I don't get floored :-( If this happens I'll need a team to get back on the trail. Other than that I love the tire and I just hope it doesn't exist no problems for me but will keep my phone handy :-) I give it 4 stars as I think it's a great tire and I downgraded it to 1 star due to mounting issues. If anyone had similar issues or can have any ideas I'd appreciate a comment.