Schwalbe One Tyres

The Schwalbe One tyres have a lot to live up to. Their previous top of the range road racing tyre, the Ultremo ZX, is much loved by road racers seeking near tubular performance from a clincher tyre, so is this new tyre really the ‘The One’?

Schwalbe One

Calling a tyre the One is a bold move, especially when you think ahead to the launch of its successor… but Schwalbe presumably know what they are doing. With such a name you expect it to be good and Schwalbe are not pulling any punches in their promotional blurb.

For a start they claim that it’s a tyre that has only just been made possible by significant advancements in the rubber compounds that Schwalbe use. This has enabled them to make what they claim to be ‘the fastest and at the same time most reliable competition tire we have ever made’, and when you hear that it is even manufactured in a separate plant in Indonesia that was built just to produce this new tyre, you start to think it might be something very special indeed.

Schwalbe One looks very like Ultremo ZX

As mentioned it was the development of a new triple compound, appropriately called the OneStar Triple Compound that is based on special polymers only recently made available, that lead directly to the development of this new tyre. We are promised extremely low rolling resistance from this completely new compound, which is exciting to anyone that enjoys going fast on a bike; after all tyres and wheels make the biggest difference to a road bike’s performance. In the diagram below you can see that there is a significant power/energy saving with the new Schwalbe One tyre. What’s also very interesting is the saving using tubeless over a tubed tyre; that definitely warrants more investigation.

Schwalbe’s final claim is that they have made a huge improvement in the ‘trade-off between rolling resistance, wet grip and durability’. The One Star Triple Compound is faster, has better grip, is more cut resistant and ultimately more puncture resistant than any previous compound. The only slight negative is that the new tyre is slightly heavier by about 10g than the Ultremo ZX but Schwalbe are keen to let you know that the benefits far outweigh this minor issue. Certainly they have got our attention with such bold claims, so time to put it all to the test.

Made at Schwalbe’s plant in Indonesia

Initially we thought that it was perhaps not the best time of year to be testing a top level road racing tyre but, what with winter racing series a plenty being run off in the worst that the British winter has to throw at us, we will end up putting these tyres through a truer test of their ability than in the summer. So stay tuned for a full review to see if these are really going to make a difference to you come the Spring.

Schwalbe Website

Schwalbe UK

Schwalbe USA