Schwalbe Johnny Watts (and other Schwalbe SUV tyres) User Club

[BlackHand]

Thanks guys, i just ordered the normal JW's. Do they grip decently on wet pavement?

Yes the regular JWs are fine in the wet and in the cold. I've ridden through the last several winters in Seattle with them. I feel far more confident on them then with the Super MotoX I had previously.

They aren't winter tires obviously but I've had enough morning commutes at or below freezing to be comfortable on them.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Yes the regular JWs are fine in the wet and in the cold. I've ridden through the last several winters in Seattle with them. I feel far more confident on them then with the Super MotoX I had previously.

They aren't winter tires obviously but I've had enough morning commutes at or below freezing to be comfortable on them.

You have been lucky or never made a more complicated maneuver on them. Regular JWs become hard at low temps, and the traction becomes limited. My brother once tried to make a U-turn on a cold, wet, and slick surface, which resulted in a collapse so violent his Garmin sent a distress signal to his son! As my brother was at those times actively commuting, he swapped the regular JWs for JW365, and rode on the latter for three cold seasons (when there was no ice). He also thinks JW365 would wear fast during the warm season.

It all depends on the weather type in a given area and is very similar to the choice of winter car tyres or riding on multiseason ones. For instance, a sane Polish driver would use winter tyres while multiseason ones are a popular choice for Denmark.

I can only re-iterate JWs are the warm season tyres while JW365 are recommended for cold weather.

Regular JWs when first installed.

@DTCsjoerd: I assume you have not ridden your Cube on the stock Smart Sams yet? As you have already decided to make the swap, all I can say is store the Smart Sams in good conditions. You might later discover how badly you need them

 

[TrevorB]

Just did some offroad riding up and down some steep very wet grass covered hills. Using standard JW 27.5 x2.35. Rear didn't break traction once, which surprised me, thought might have walk a couple of climbs.

Offroad part of this ride wasn't planned otherwise would used FS emtb instead of trekking ebike with JW.

 

[DTCsjoerd]

You have been lucky or never made a more complicated maneuver on them. Regular JWs become hard at low temps, and the traction becomes limited. My brother once tried to make a U-turn on a cold, wet, and slick surface, which resulted in a collapse so violent his Garmin sent a distress signal to his son! As my brother was at those times actively commuting, he swapped the regular JWs for JW365, and rode on the latter for three cold seasons (when there was no ice). He also thinks JW365 would wear fast during the warm season.

It all depends on the weather type in a given area and is very similar to the choice of winter car tyres or riding on multiseason ones. For instance, a sane Polish driver would use winter tyres while multiseason ones are a popular choice for Denmark.

I can only re-iterate JWs are the warm season tyres while JW365 are recommended for cold weather.

View attachment 179155
Regular JWs when first installed.

@DTCsjoerd: I assume you have not ridden your Cube on the stock Smart Sams yet? As you have already decided to make the swap, all I can say is store the Smart Sams in good conditions. You might later discover how badly you need them

Thanks for all the great advice Stefan. I indeed haven't ridden on Smart Sam's yet but will make sure to store them in good conditions!

 

[BlackHand]

You have been lucky or never made a more complicated maneuver on them. Regular JWs become hard at low temps, and the traction becomes limited. My brother once tried to make a U-turn on a cold, wet, and slick surface, which resulted in a collapse

Really, Stefan? I'll refrain from speculating about Jacek's luck or the skill level required to make a u turn.


Setting aside your insulting insinuation, I agree that regular JWs are not winter tires. However, they are perfectly serviceable all season tires in mild climates or 3 season tires in a location where you need a true winter tire with persistent below freezing temps.

That said, they are not a 'warm' season only tire and your claim that their traction is 'limited' starting at +10C is baseless speculation. Of course the 365 tires will have better -but still limited- traction (and worse rolling resistance) at low temperatures due to the softer compound. That does not mean that the regular Addix is ineffective, ESPECIALLY FOR WET PERFORMANCE WHICH WAS THE QUESTION.

Apparently neither does Schwalbe:
All of our Schwalbe Addix Compounds are rather insensitive to temperatures in usual conditions (from double-digit minus degrees to summer temperatures) and have a significantly lower glazing temperatures than some of our competitors. This is the reason why our tires work well under a wide range of conditions.

and

Schwalbe Addix Compounds are perfect for year-round use due to their special composition, which easily tolerates temperature fluctuations

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Setting aside your insulting insinuation

You Americans seem to be so easily offendable... It was certainly not my intention to insult you.

You can defend your point. I'd say JWs are suboptimal for low temps and wet, that's it.

Were I you, I'd never question the expertise of Jacek, whose riding skill (both gravel and MTB) are beyond anything you or I could do He never does unnecessary actions or purchases. His choice of JW365 was very well thought out.

He rides with an advanced MTB cycling club, only in the winters.

 

[bombadero]

Wow, this is a long lived thread. I've had great experiences with this tire for about 3 years, and recently I've noticed it has become very popular on SUV bikes and the new all-rounder/ATB SUV bikes like the Tern Orox, but I haven't heard much about it in the mtb cycling press. I found this thread because I was curious how others felt about it. I should mention I've only ever used the 365 variant with the DD/Greenguard/E-50 casing. I've used it on an old (2017) R&M Homage I converted to light trail use for my wife, believe it or not, and a hard-tail XC e-mtb. In both cases, I use it as the front tire. The rear on the Homage is a Hurricane and the rear on the XC is a Maxxis Forekaster. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I have done some light snow riding in Norcal on the Homage with it.

Although I am not a particularly technical rider, I have to stress that there is an incredible variety of trail conditions out here, really everything you can imagine, and you can encounter it all on a single ride, apart from snow and ice--sand, chunky rocks, roots, mud, small puddles, loose, loose over hard, exposed, blasted rock faces, gravel, you name it. Some of the trails and fire trails we ride, although mostly non-technical and not singletrack, do have very small jumps sometimes, as well as somewhat technical rooty or rocky climbs, and there is an absolutely brutal descent down the back side of a trail called Miwok Trail in the Marin Headlands, for instance. Despite Schwalbe's rating of this tire as not a 'true' mtb tire, albeit very close to one, I have had absolutely zero issues with the JW 365 on either of these bikes. It has never lost its grip on a banked turn or a steep, rutted gravelly fire road, and also never locked up on me. On the road, you wouldn't even know it's intended for any off-road use, and is whisper quiet. Corners great in the rain. It is the ideal all-rounder tire, imo. I haven't tried the regular JW, but the 365 is just about the perfect e-mtb tire if you also want to ride fast on the road after your mtb ride because you ride to and from your off-road, a few miles each way, rather than driving. And then you clean your bike and maybe want to use it for some light urban cycling to go to an appointment or pick up some milk the next day. It's like a magic tire. You can seamlessly switch from any road or trail condition to any other road or trail condition at any time. And like most Schwalbe tires, it is bombproof. I can't say enough good things about it.

The only gripe I have about it is that it is not tubless ready, so I cannot run it on the rear wheel of my XC bike as well after building up a new wheel with a Halo Gravitas rim, which is extremely deep. I tried a couple of Schwalbe tires on there and it was not happening. It took about two hours to get my Rekon back on it from the old rim. I decided as soon as I got a flat, I would switch to tubeless on that wheel, which happened last week, thankfully in my garage somehow. So I'll be running a Nobby Nic back there instead, and keeping the JW 365 on the front, which has a Halo SAS rim, which is much wider and onto which it is easier to install a steel beaded tire. I have a second Gravitas rim, and decided to stick with the SAS and keep the second Gravitas as a back-up for my rear wheel, just so I can keep the JW 365 up there.

They've even released a fatbike version now, although it is a bit of a wonky size, 27.5 x 4.00; if they offered it in 26 x 4 and also offered a 27.5 x 2.25/2.35 folding variant, you would never need another tire. We also have an HP Velotechnik Scorpion FS20, a really old one, it's a 2007, that I had factory retrofitted with the e-trike kit several years ago. I run 20" Marathon GT 365's on the trike, but if they made a 20" JW 365, I would switch in a heart beat. I have a fat bike that can take 29" wheels for summer riding, and if I ever build that wheelset, I will definitely be slapping the JW 365 29 x 2.6 tires on there, both front and rear.

If you use an e-mtb for hybrid purposes, or even a gravel bike or touring bike, or an SUV bike, you won't be disappointed with this tire. It says a lot that many e-bikes are fitted with this tire OEM now.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I have gathered a very useful inflation pressure information from a 68 kg (150 lb) person riding a Giant Trance E+ 2 Pro all year round.

Johnny Watts 65-584 (27.5x2.6") in the summer
Johnny Watts 365 (the same size) in the winter

• Summer, off-road: 1.5 bar (22 psi)
• Winter, off-road: 1.2 to 1.4 bar (17 to 20 psi)
• All-year, pavement only: 2.0 bar (29 psi)

For that tyre size, the allowed pressure range is:
Johnny Watts: 1.2 to 2.6 bar (17 to 38 psi)
Johnny Watts 365: 1.2 to 3.0 bar (17 to 44 psi).

 

[bombadero]

Holy cow, I just swapped the down-market version of the Maxxis Forekaster and a tube off of the back wheel of my XC bike with a Schwalbe Nobby Nic running tubeless, and wowie what a difference. It's like a new bike. Whereas the Forekaster made that sort of low growl many knobby tires make on pavement, which honestly sounds really cool but also signals higher rolling resistance, the Nobby Nic is surprisingly quiet. Despite that, it is far better at cornering than the Forekaster ever was. The Forekaster was kind of twitchy, you had to monitor it constantly because it would break traction at any moment, especially on loose over hard. The Nobby Nic seems to be glued to whatever surface it's riding on. I did spring for the Evo/Superground/Addix version. Despite the Nobby Nic being identified as a proper AM/trail/XC tire by Schwalbe and the Johhny Watts 365 as a mere "SUV" tire, the combo of JW 365 front and Nobby Nic seems to be the perfect combination for me to turn my XC bike into an all-rounder that can rip on city streets just as quickly as it does on trails. It really is a torpedo now. It's a California class III as well; it's really fun passing other e-bikes at the same delta as they are used to passing traditional bikes and seeing the double-take . I have to be careful, because it carves in addition to ripping now, so I have to tone down the aggressive riding in traffic, it really is too tempting.

Now to figure out how to keep ammonia-based tubeless sealant from corroding my rear wheel. I'm going to try boiled linseed oil, as it doesn't react with ammonia or various metals like aluminum and brass and is actually supposed to improve the quality of rubber compounds. Some auto gearheads actually wipe it on their sidewalls. I've hedged my bets and I'm going to try Peaty's non-ammonia-based sealant as well. I also re-upped on Stan's so I can compare. I already use boiled linseed oil on spokes and nips during wheel builds, so it seems like a logical choice. Another option, which a lot of people online use for automotive wheel hubs, is aluminum anti-seize, which I also have on hand, but that seems a lot messier and goopier. Something else to try though. I couldn't find anyone else trying to address the issue this way online, the concensus seems to be tape as best as you can and deal with it, or try a non-ammonia sealant. But we grease other parts with various things to prevent corrosion all the time. If it's really successful, I might start another thread on it.