Schwalbe’s all-new Magic Mary Radial tyre’s carcass has a unique construction that creates epic grip and control on the trails.
The radial plies run as close as possible to 90 degrees across the tyre, akin to automotive rubber, instead of the 45 degrees seen on traditional bias-ply designs.
Costing £79.99 / €79.90 and weighing 1,326g, this gravity-focused tyre’s stats are par for the course.
It chews into the trail’s surface, providing fantastic levels of mechanical grip in soft and hard dirt. The soft-compound rubber clings onto rocks and roots at high speed.
Carcass deformation is key to its damped and muted feel, but this comes at the cost of more dings and burps from impacts. Overall stability is good, however.
Schwalbe Magic Mary Radial Gravity Pro Addix Ultra Soft 29x2.5 specifications
Rewriting the mountain bike tyres rulebook, the Magic Mary Radial is constructed with plies that run at almost 90 degrees to the direction of travel.
These are claimed to improve grip and comfort, and increase the contact patch with the ground.
By increasing the angle of the plies from closer to the 45 degrees used on bias-ply designs, Schwalbe claims it has reduced material overlap within the tyre.
This results in a softer, more compliant and flexible carcass, without reducing sidewall stability and puncture protection.
This is claimed to boost grip and damping on the trail; where traditional tyres wouldn’t deform or compress, the radial can. Likewise, the tyre ‘squashes’ more to increase the contact patch’s size, boosting traction even more.
While Schwalbe is quick to extol the virtues of its new Radial tyres, it states you may need higher pressures to achieve your desired level of carcass stability.
It also says rolling resistance may be increased compared to bias-ply tyres.
Despite the Magic Mary’s internal construction being all-new, externally its tread pattern remains unchanged.
Alternating two-three centre blocks (with alternating horizontal siping) run along its centre, while the two-two shoulder knobs with vertical siping sit along its edges; all are designed for braking and cornering traction.
This 29x2.5in tyre measures 61.5mm/2.42in wide when inflated to 25psi on a 30mm internal-width rim. The Radial Gravity Pro casing and Addix Ultra Soft compound tips the scales at 1,326g.
Schwalbe Magic Mary Radial Gravity Pro Addix Ultra Soft 29x2.5 performance
Installation
The Magic Mary’s radial construction gives the carcass a supple and malleable feel, which makes fitting the tyres remarkably easy.
Only light hand work and manipulation was needed to get the bead onto the rim.
It inflated instantly, using only a high-volume track pump. After just a few light pumps, the tyres had fully seated at 5psi with an air-tight seal.
Given their weight and intended gravity use, the ease of fitment and inflation is in a league of its own.
Profile and shape
At 25psi, the Magic Mary has a rounded profile; its centre knobs sit proud of the shoulder knobs, reducing rolling resistance and focusing your weight onto them for straight-line acceleration and braking traction.
The centre knobs have an outwards camber, reducing the transitional gap to the side knobs when initiating a turn.
The shoulder knobs are angled outwards significantly, increasing grip at extreme lean-over angles and making traction loss more predictable, especially compared to squarer designs.
Feel and grip
When hammering over soft terrain, the Magic Mary chews and munches at the ground, making a unique tearing sound as it digs into and deforms around the trail you’re riding.
Audibly representing the deformation of the tyre carcass, there’s an immense amount of traction on tap when you want to make challenging line choices or change direction.
Roots and rocks are sailed across, as your bike fires a straight and true line, unperturbed by deflection or traction loss.
However, higher speeds and forces get the carcass to deform and maintain grip the most.
At lower speeds, such as when you’re climbing, the tyre can slide on rocks and roots at extreme angles; the Addix Ultra Soft compound lacks slightly in chemical grip compared to Maxxis’ MaxxGrip rubber.
Braking traction is exceptional; the tyre flings mud upwards as it bites. It clears boggy mud quickly, helping keep grip consistent.
On hardpack or greasy, damp terrain, the grip is good. Again, you can hear the tyre’s carcass and tread deforming and sticking to the trail.
Scary high-speed understeer is infrequent and usually caused by an over-exuberant riding style rather than a weakness in the tyre’s design.
Still, it’s not as good as Michelin’s reworked Magi-X tread, which sticks to the ground with even more ferocity.
That beautiful grip-inducing carcass deformation comes with some downsides, though.
It lacks the overall strength of more traditional bias-carcass tyres of a similar weight. Smashing through rocks with hard impacts splatters sealant up its sidewall and onto the rim.
Positively, however, no more than 1psi escaped from the tyre at the bottom of a run where it had burped.
I played with pressures, going as high as 32psi on the rear and 29psi at the front. While this reduced the burping to almost zero, the Magic Mary felt much closer to a traditional bias-ply tyre, losing some of that illustrious grip.
Its super-damped and muted feel is fantastic, however. Buzz, vibrations and even mid-sized impacts are well insulated from the rider, boosting smoothness and control.
The carcass is no more prone to punctures or pinch flats than bias-ply tyres.
Equally, it doesn’t squirm or fold in high-load turns.
There’s no vagueness, and neither does it feel as if it’s going to unseat from the rim. Clearly, Schwalbe has balanced its performance well.
How we tested | winter enduro tyres
All six of these tyres were tested back-to-back on both the front and rear wheels of our test bike.
Alex used the same 30mm internal-width rim for each of the tyres and inflated them to the same or an equivalent pressure, allowing for small differences in tyre volume (higher-volume tyres require slightly lower pressures).
Alex rode a wide gamut of terrain types – average trail-centre laps to get an idea of rolling resistance, down muddy, boggy and rocky and rooty descents to test grip, and on high-load, high-speed downhill tracks to test for carcass stability.
Tyres on test
- Schwalbe Magic Mary Radial Gravity Pro Addix Ultra Soft 29x2.5
- Maxxis High Roller III 3C MaxxGrip DH Casing 29x2.4
- Michelin Wild Enduro MS Racing Line 29x2.4
- Continental Argotal Enduro Soft 29x2.4
- Pirelli Scorpion Race Enduro T 29x2.5
- WTB Vigilante SG1 Tough/High Grip 29x2.5
Schwalbe Magic Mary Radial Gravity Pro Addix Ultra Soft 29x2.5 bottom line
The pioneering design of Schwalbe’s Radial tyres pays dividends on the trails, offering up predictable grip in never-before-seen quantities. It chews and munches the trail, boosting sureness and control.
Carcass strength is good; it didn’t puncture and neither did it deform or squirm in high-load situations, but it’s less resistant to impacts than bias-ply tyres. Increasing pressures helps, but some of that damping and grippy magic is lost.
Riders wanting novel levels of grip and a malleable carcass should seriously consider the excellent Magic Mary Radial.
Product
| Brand | schwalbe |
| Price | 80.00 EUR,80.00 GBP |
| Weight | 1326.0000, GRAM (29x2.5) - |
