Interview: Inside the Development of Schwalbe's Tacky Chan

Making its debut as a prototype in 2021, Schwalbe’s new Tacky Chan tire has been racking up results on the World Cup DH scene over the past few years. The model was released to the public this past summer, and has begun to see regular use among the often-fickle, sharpie-prone pro ranks.

Tires are a dark art to most of us, so Henry Quinney and I sat down with Schwalbe product manager Carl Kämper to ask all the questions. How do new tires get developed? What does testing look like? Why are they so expensive? We were also joined by Felix Jahn, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, with insights into the business of actually making tires, and the challenges faced in trying to lower their impacts.

The transcript below has been edited for clarity, readability, and length. We waffle around a lot more on the podcast, so give it a listen!

The CSR report we discuss in the podcast is available here, the fair trade NGO is called Fair Rubber, and the Tacky Chan product page can be found here.

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Henry: 
Carl, you're the product manager for mountain biking. Could you tell us about your role and what it is you do at Schwalbe?

Carl:
So my name is Carl Kämper, and I'm Product Manager and Developer for MTB at Schwalbe. And mainly my role is to develop and create a range of mountain bike tires, which involves listening to all kinds of mountain bikers, be it the average rider, weekend warrior, or a world cup athlete like Amaury Pierron. I'd say 20% of my time is world cup development, and the other 80% is visiting customers, being at events, listening to riders, obviously spending a lot of time in the office, but also spending a lot of time on the bike.

Henry:
Felix, something that we just spoke about in the preamble to this podcast is actually how Schwalbe is very much still a family company. And I believe that you're kind of part of the Schwalbe family. So can you set it at once and for all, am I saying Schwalbe wrong? How do I say it? Schwobble? Schwobbly? Schwobbler? Help me!

Felix:
You know, it is whatever you want it to be. I would call it Schwalbe [“shh-vull-buh”–Ed.]. If you want to call it Schwalbe [“shh-wall-bee”–Ed.], then be my guest.

Brian:
What's the worst pronunciation of Schwalbe you've ever heard?

Felix:
Schwab-low. 

Brian:
I'm sorry, but I am 100% calling them Schwab-lows now. That's great.

Henry:
You should make a tire called the Schwablow Escobar.

Carl:
That one goes right on the list!

[laughs]


Henry:
The Tacky Chan is an interesting tire. I think the Assegai, the tire from Maxxis, gets a huge amount of credit for that transfer knob. But actually it could arguably be said to start with the Magic Mary, and that alternating transfer knob to take the rider from the center to the edge knobs. And even if we look to the tread of the Tacky Chan, the varying center tread actually does incorporate that as well.

There's a really interesting story I heard about the team at Commencal Muc-Off, actually starting with a Big Betty. And that was really in the foundations of what was, what would later become the Tacky Chan. Could you just explain the process of what it's like starting with that kind of development and what the testing process looks like?

Carl:
So you heard that right. That's actually how we started the Tacky Chan. I remember in 2019, that was when I started the design of the Big Betty. It was actually a quick design, honestly not entirely meant for the DH World Cup. So it was more of a market-focused development. And nonetheless, we went for a team test in the wintertime in 2019 in Andorra. 

It was actually fairly cold, and Thibaut Daprèla and Amaury Pierron had the first runs on the Big Betty. From the get-go they really, really liked the corner hold of the tire, with the one big disadvantage of the Big Betty that the shoulder knobs are so stiff that the tire was tough to ride. 

People always think of World Cup riders as like the ultimate rider and to a certain extent they are. Like they are extremely good athletes, but also athletes, the best athletes make mistakes, and the tire has to be able to give the athlete a bit of freedom to correct mistakes. The Big Betty just didn't provide that. So what the team did was they cut down the shoulder knobs of the Big Betty, made some other changes to the tread pattern and that's actually how it all started.


Henry:
It's a funny thing because (racers) obviously want to get to the next level, they want their best results ever, but also they oftentimes want to stick with products they trust and they know work. I think it can be a difficult balance. What has been your experience of developing tyres with these professional athletes? Is there any resistance or reluctance to try what could be the next big thing?

Carl:
So from my experience, this is absolutely dependent on the rider. There are some riders out there that I would call early adopters. Whatever you've done that is new and different, they'll like it from the get go, they will feel comfortable on it. There are some riders out there that just feel (good) on everything right from the beginning. However, there also are the riders that you just described that need some convincing to get going on a new tread pattern. 

So that's actually what we've seen this year in the World Cup. For most of our riders, it was the first year on the Tacky Chan. And despite extensive off season tests last year, there was still some process of getting used to the new tread pattern. 

Henry:
The way that the conversation spreads around the pits at World Cups is oftentimes, the riders kind of want the group to have a referendum, whether this product is good enough to race. And then that gives them confidence. I think that, like you said, it's very individual, but I think also sometimes it's, like you said, even the best riders make mistakes and they're very much human and having the ideological investment in any part or bike product or whatever is actually really important because they're going out literally risking life and limb.

Brian:
I've got a free marketing idea for all tire manufacturers listening. Well maybe it has and we just don't know, but why not sign a couple of top level riders, don’t announce it, and then they run your tires sharpied out for half a season? For sure that buzz becomes a thing that people spot.

Carl:
Maybe it has been done, who knows…


Henry:
Before this job, I've worked for teams that would have a clause in the tire sponsor’s contract that said, “whilst we're developing the brand that we're sponsored by, we have freedom of choice to run X, Y, Z.” And in years past they were running the Magic Mary, which is a good all round tyre, it's quite popular with a lot of world cup racers. Behind the scenes, that must give you a tremendous amount of pride when you see your tyres are the ones that other people are running, right?

Carl:
Absolutely, I can totally confirm this. Whenever there's a team or rider in the pits asking to purchase your product, although they're not sponsored by you, it's actually something that's really heartwarming. It's the biggest compliment you could get. 

Getting back to the development of the Tacky Chan, that's something I just remembered. When we first had the tire at a World Cup, that was 2021, its first race, there was such a rumor spreading through the pits after Thibaut Daprela’s first few successful runs on the tire. 

That's just something that's so special about the World Cup. Everyone's talking and figuring out what products are good and whatnot. And right after that, we got the first (racer) requests for this tire, which we obviously couldn't fulfill at the time.

Brian:
You’re not the only brand guilty of this, but if you look at most tire manufacturers’ catalogues, they’re massively complex and have a ton of product variants. When you decide to develop a tire, how does that decision get made? Is it racer demand? OE customers? How do you justify a new product within your lineup?

Carl:
I mean, the beauty of mountain biking is how it's always changing. People always figure out new ways to ride a bike. Tracks are changing, racing is changing, and that often leads to such decisions. We have some internal processes to decide about new products, an internal group of people sitting together, talking about products, challenging ideas that come up.

Trust me, whenever we decide to go for a new tread pattern, it's actually a big decision. Every new (tire) in our range creates an exponential amount of new part numbers. You can imagine, sizes, different compounds per size, different casing per compound, and so on. 

For instance, with the Tacky Chan, it was not an easy decision we made, especially considering that the Magic Mary and the Tacky Chan are kind of close to each other—in terms of the intended use. So you could argue we already have a DH tire, why make another one? 

Those decisions are not made that easily, it's something that we discuss a lot and talk about.


Henry:
Within tire development, is it data-led? Or is it only off rider feedback? Can you do lab testing in terms of grip, that sort of thing? Or is it thing just merely like impact resistance that you can test in a lab?

Carl:
Um, so I hope I don't give away too much here, but yeah, we can test grip as well for sure. That's an important point, but honestly, this is something that we just test to prove rider feeling. It's actually always rider first. Although I'm the developer of certain products, I don't have to go out there and race the product. That's going to be Amaury or Thibaut or whoever. So honestly, everything we do is backed up first and foremost by lap times, race results, and then we go down to the lab tests.

Brian:
In the design process you're running some sort of FEA or other predictive models—how good is the correlation there? Can you scan a competitor tire, run some simulations and go, “oh, that's good” or “oh, that's sh*t” when it comes to tread pattern? Or are there just too many variables still?

Carl:
So that's the interesting thing about mountain bike tires. We’ve researched a lot on how we can do more calculations on design improvements of mountain bike tires. 

I once read an interesting comment on Pinkbike, actually, from a guy that said, “so if there are so many mountain bike tire manufacturers out there developing new tires, ultimately, everyone should come to the same conclusion, to the same design, because this is the ultimate tire design.”

This hasn’t happened to this point. There are some designs that are similar, maybe some similarities in geometry and so on. But if you look at a Schwalbe tire, it looks significantly different than most other tires. And this is where it's interesting. 

So I would say the calculation of tread patterns, FEA analysis, whatever, is actually so hard. Tires are so unpredictable that it's not really possible to do so, which then means… Again, the rider is the most important component in the whole development process.

Henry:
I've noticed in recent years Schwalbe has tried to really streamline, going to the various casings and coloured compounds, etc., but do you think there's a danger of overwhelming the consumer with choice? 

And actually, you could just say, “this is the tire for you.” Because I think tires should be heavier, personally. I like heavy tires. I think they ride really well. 

Brian:
This is the most leading question I've ever heard, Henry.

Henry:
What I'm saying is, can you try and convince people that we should all be on heavier tires?

[laughs]

Carl:
To be honest, Henry already helped us with this. We're also fans of heavier tires. 

To answer your question—I'm a bit nervous here that I'm risking my job, because my job involves taking care of a big range of tires. But yes, I think we're actually overwhelming customers. I think this is happening. 

But on the other hand, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of my work involves talking to our customers and talking to riders all over the world. This is something we have to keep in mind.

Riders are just so different. I'm personally a fan of heavy tires, but if I give my father a set of super gravity tires and he's just doing light trail riding, it's not a suitable tire for him. So I like the simple rule of having tires that are suitable for what you want to do.


Brian:
I would love to shift gears from tread patterns to talk about materials. It seems like it's a more linear range from really sticky to less sticky compounds, but there are so many additional factors with carcass stiffness, different additives, etc. So could you, talk us through how you connect the design process to the decisions around materials?

Carl:
With our new lineup of carcass constructions, we aligned them according to the intended use of the tire. Now, the materials we're using for each casing are based heavily on lab tests. We always try to use weight efficiently, which means every gram that we put into the tile should have a proportionally high effect on, let's say, puncture resistance or rolling speed or comfort. 

To give you an example, if you put a 250 gram tire insert in your tire, then these 250 grams will, depending on the insert, lead to let's say 40% increase of puncture resistance. However, if you give me those 250 grams to put into the carcass construction, new layers, etc, then I can make use of them much more efficiently with a puncture resistance increase of 60%, 70%, whatever. 

So usually, weight is really efficiently used in the tire itself. This is something that we heavily incorporate in our material usage, this kind of research.


Brian:
Felix, can you sort of give a broad strokes background on Schwalbe's manufacturing capabilities and specifically how those materials fit into it?

Felix:
Tire development is so fascinating because the material side of things is dynamic and constantly evolving. Every few years, we find ourselves with new possibilities, new materials that we can use, not just to enhance performance or quality, but also the sustainability of the tire. 

I feel like, especially in the past three years, there has been so much happening on the supply chain side, where suppliers have been so active about finding new materials from recycled or renewable sources, that also give you an edge in performance. And what Carl and I, and our teams, are trying to do.

You're seeing tires now in the Schwalbe range that are significantly more sustainable than a couple of years ago. And this is now all coming to our high-end tires—road tires, gravel tires, and of course mountain bike tires.

Brian:
You were saying before the podcast that the Tacky Chan doesn't yet use any recycled materials, but it could.

Felix:
Yes, and it will within the next 12 months, which is very exciting. 

And the Tacky Chan won't be the only tire in our mountain bike range using this. We are feeding the recycled material into test samples, we're testing these in the field as well as in the lab, and we'll be launching them in the very near future.


Henry:
Felix, when I think of a recycled tyre, because I'm a simpleton, I'm thinking one tyre goes into some sort of machine and then it gets, hey presto, it's revitalized into a brand new tyre. I’ve got a feeling that isn't quite how it works. Can you talk about what the recycled material is that you're sourcing? Is it from previously used tyres?

Felix:
Hah, I wish it was that simple. It would make my life significantly easier. 

Essentially don't look at this as a recycled tire. Look at it as the used tire, the old tire, gives you materials for the production of new tires. This new tire is made up of several components and materials, and what we're working on right now is making all of these different components and materials from renewable or recycled sources. 

When we talk about our tire recycling system, which we launched last year (unfortunately at the moment only available in Germany), we get a recovered carbon black out of the tires and this is what we use in the production of new tires. 

This (recovered carbon black) is what you will find in, for example, the Tacky Chan sometime in the future. But there will also be other materials flowing into this tire, for example fillers that are traditionally from using fossil fuels, that we are now able to get from renewable sources.


Brian:
Can we catch me up on how tires are actually manufactured? Super simplified…

Henry:
Like, do you mine rubber? Does it come out of the ground?

Felix:
Rubber is a wonderful natural raw material found in a rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis. And you have this tree growing in the equator regions. We source our natural rubber predominantly from Indonesia, where we also manufacture all of our (tire) compounds. So we have a very short supply chain on that side. 

You basically have small holders, just like you have with coffee, tea, or cocoa. And these people  have small rubber plantations. They're usually not monocultures like palm oil, they are so-called jungle plantations, at least in our case. So you have a very high level of biodiversity, low impact on the environment. 

This rubber from the trees is then processed in a processing plant. And this is what we get to our tire factory where we then use it to create compounds. Talking about tire tech, I'm sure you know what all goes in there—fillers, chemicals, carbon black, or in the future recovered carbon black, to make different compounds. 

The compounding side is really what decides whether a tire is good or bad. 

Henry:
Am I right in saying that Schwalbe uses a fair trade agreement with some of its suppliers?

Felix:
Yeah, so we are working with an NGO called Fair Rubber. Essentially, it's the fair trade organization for natural rubber. And together with them, we found a supplier in Java, around 100 kilometers from our factory. We set up a system for the farmers, the smallholders. Basically they are attached to a cooperative, and for every kilogram of natural rubber that we buy off every individual smallholder, we pay an additional 50 cents. This equates to roughly an additional one third of their monthly salary. So it does have a real impact on these people, on their communities. 

I was lucky to visit last September. I was able to visit a school that has been completely renovated, so it has a real positive influence on these communities. We started with around 230, 250 smallholders in 2020, and we now have just over 2,500. So it's a system that we've been able to scale up.

We're hoping to increase the capacities in the future, definitely. And since July this year, the Tacky Chan, amongst other mountain bike tires, also uses Fair Rubber.


Henry:
This sounds like a really healthy initiative for something like fair trade. Did the covid bike boom and materials shortages actually make a lasting improvement by giving the smallholders more power?

Felix:
No, let's not sugarcoat this. These people usually live below the poverty line and they are often exploited. The bicycle industry, even though we are growing and the future outlook is very positive, we are only a very small portion. So that is why we find it really important to find some sort of way to support these people whilst also giving them ownership over what they do.

Brian:
Aside from the social reasons and moral reasons to do something like this, does it also impact the quality of the rubber? Are we going to see mountain bike hipsters start looking for single origin, shade grown at a specific altitude, rubber on their tires? 

Felix:
As a coffee geek, I would love that, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. No, it doesn't affect the quality of the product, but it affects the livelihood of these people.

Brian:
What do other bike tire manufacturers do? Are there similar programs elsewhere? As an industry, are we doing a good job or a bad job?

Felix:
There is no other initiative known to me that looks into the social aspect of the rubber supply chain, which in my opinion is arguably the most important aspect to look at. I don't want to talk for other tire makers, but I think we all are better than five years ago, but we all still need to improve very much.

The main problem in the rubber supply chain is simply that the price of rubber is too low and has been for a long time. That is the core of the problem. And as you can imagine, there are many companies that are not very interested in having higher prices in their raw material sourcing. So we need to find a way how we can balance this inequality out, how businesses can still do business and people in the beginning of the supply chain are not exploited.

This happens, unfortunately, in many, many raw materials, like I was saying before, coffee and so forth. And unfortunately, rubber is also one of them.

Brian:
When you talk about having a new, recycled version of the Tacky Chan, do you think that your race team will be able to tell the difference?

Felix:
No. That is our idea of a proper eco design and proper development of the new tires that we think are possible to enter the market in the future.

The hardest thing to do in sustainable product development is finding the balance of increasing the sustainability of your tire and not affecting the quality and or performance. We launched a new city tire, the Green Marathon at this year's Eurobike. And we did about three and a half years of field testing with a crazy amount of cycles. We've never done any more field tests before in Schwalbe history, comparing old and new in the same tire. 

We'd have segmented tires where you have the old compound and the new compound, for example, on the tread so we can have direct comparisons with a ton of different tread patterns and so forth in all surfaces. A very intense research and development process.

Carl:
Fun fact, we even tested some Magic Marys with a Marathon compound on bike park rental bikes, and also with athletes. [During testing] they were unknowingly riding the new Marathon compound.


Felix:
When we started the development of (the Green Marathon), we were looking into a (mid level) tire. And then we started with compound testing, and we're like, hang on a second. This stuff is crazy, crazy good. And it can totally rival the durability of a Marathon city tire. So let's go with this.

Brian:
With what will become the tacky Chan recycled compound, have you guys already had the team on those?

Carl:
Not that they knew, but... Maybe there was already a World Cup won on it. No, just kidding. Not yet, honestly.

Brian:
I don't I don't know what to believe anymore.

[laughs]


Carl:
That would be our dream, having a World Cup won on a Tacky Chan with recycled material is certainly our goal. And honestly, I think it's going to happen, maybe even next year.

Brian:
I want to throw it back to Carl, and ask the uncomfortable question that the listeners have been yelling the whole time while Felix has been telling us about fair trade rubber. How much more does that end up costing the consumer?

Carl:
Nothing.

Brian:
So you guys just eat that margin? Bicycle tires are very expensive, not just yours, but yours are also very expensive. And that has nothing to do with the cost of raw materials?

Carl:
The price of bicycle tires is an old discussion that I don't know how many times I’ve had with commentators. “Why do your bicycle tires cost as much, if not more than your car tires?” 

First and foremost, there's surely a scale of production that plays into this, but also it should be considered that you can compare it, that people aren’t apples to apples.

A regular car tire is the equivalent of our low-end or mid-range MTB tire, whereas our high-end tires are more comparable to track tires. And on top of that, most of the production costs are from the time in production, especially for MTB tires. People underestimate how much hand work and craftsmanship actually goes into these tires.

Brian:
A car tire is big and heavy and uses lots of raw materials, and a bike tire is small and light and uses less raw materials. It seems like the bike tire should be less expensive, but it’s all the manufacturing processes that are the bulk of the cost?

Carl:
Yes. Just pricing by the amount of raw materials would be too simple to look at it that way.

Brian:
How much does a track tire cost on a car?

Carl:
I think a Michelin Pilot Sport Cup is like, I think for my car it would be 250-300 euros per tyre, something like that.

Henry:
Felix, something we were speaking about off camera and I think it's really important to talk about—to paraphrase what you said is that this fair trade agreement does affect your margins. Can you just speak to that? Because what you said I thought was really insightful.

Felix:
So what I was saying is that of course it affects our margins because it's a ton of money that has to come from somewhere. We didn't want to make sustainability a buying decision. It shouldn't be a luxury, and as you were saying earlier, our products are not exactly cheap. 

I don't want a situation where you have a customer and they say, well, I'm not going to buy this fair trade tire because it's more expensive. But at the end of the day, you know, if we pay 50 cents per kilogram extra. And of course it affects the margins, but we are a family owned business. We have the luxury of saying, “well we're not publicly listed, we don't have to adhere to any investors. We believe in this stuff and this is what we're going to do.”

Carl:
As Felix just said, we didn't want to make our sustainable products a target group product. But instead, it's our own vision of creating better bicycle tires, which is why we made it kind of the standard, or the future standard.

Brian:
So you don't just have a granola, Birkenstock-wearing persona that you're trying to get market share in that group with?

Felix:
Not yet anyway [laughs].

I just wanted to add for transparency, we're not using 100% natural rubber just yet because we don't have the capacities. We set up this supply chain three years ago. We've made really good progress, going from 250 smallholders to 2,500, but we're still not close to reaching 100%. But this is a target that we set ourselves for the future.

Henry:
If we take a really cynical point of view, people might say is that not just a marketing ploy? What would your response be to that?

Felix:
We heard similar things about our recycling system. Oh, it's just a marketing ploy. Well, we have made the decision to improve wherever we can. We have found several ways. One of them is the tire recycling system. The other one is finding ways to establish fair trade natural rubber. We simply believe that we must make the bicycle as responsible as possible. And it's not an option for us to be sustainable. It's a duty.

Carl:
As Felix mentioned earlier, for instance the Tacky Chan was initially not planned to receive the Fairtrade rubber just because of availability. So when our supply situation changed a little bit and we were able to add it to the program, we already did it in the background without talking about it for literally months.

It would be a fault to not talk about it now, for sure, but on the other hand, steps in the background are being taken that no one even knows about, already incorporated in the product development and so on. It costs us money, but we can't talk about it and we don't talk about it. So I would definitely not say this is a marketing thing.

Felix:
I just want to say one last thing to that too. Consumers have a really good reason to question any type of green claim. There's a lot of bullshit going on. And it is seriously frustrating that a lot of companies, most of them outside the cycling industry, are taking just advantage of the unknowing of your average consumer. 

I think it's actually very good when you have people, especially in our bicycle community, questioning what we do. And it is necessary, because that usually means that companies try to do better. That is one of the reasons why we also want to create transparency, by for example, publishing a CSR report.

Brian:
That's a good point. People assume we don't appreciate it when readers question the biases in a product review or in some coverage, but I'm always really happy when I see good, healthy skepticism. I think that media skepticism is important, and I think that sustainability skepticism is important. 

I think it's difficult, you can just go your whole life being incredibly cynical about stuff too, and that's not helpful, just being defeated all the time, but I do think it's really good to investigate and go a little deeper. So I appreciate that comment.


Henry:
For full clarity, there's actually this CSR report. It's probably a bit more than bedtime reading, it's quite a long report. Felix can you just explain the process of what you wanted to achieve by releasing the report?

Felix:
Yeah, you know, as an industry, we all need to become more transparent about what we do behind the scenes, if you like. And that is what our CSR report is trying to do. It took us a long time, again, to write it and get it all together, and it is supposed to give a clear message of what we are doing right now, what we have been doing in the past and where we want to be tomorrow, in five years. 

It really looks at the whole issue holistically. So from things we do at our headquarters for our employees and their families to our supply chain, our engagement with Fair Rubber. What we do on the production side, what we do on the product level, the various social projects that we either initiated or that we support financially or in other ways. My hope anyway is that it gives a very clear understanding of what we do in this regard. 

It also makes us accountable. You know, showing if we miss the target, then that is something that we will report in the next CSR report and so forth.

Brian:
The thing that always bothers me is when people yada-yada-yada the environmental side, “because it's bikes, therefore it's green, therefore it's good.” It's nice to see a report like this—although to be clear, it came out yesterday, it's a hundred pages long, I have not dug through it yet. But I think it's an important effort because it's an acknowledgement that we can't buy our way to a better future, but we can still try and reduce our overall impact.

Felix:
Yeah, I mean, we all love the bicycle. And it is our duty to make the bicycle as sustainable as possible. 

Henry:
We're going to leave a link to that CSR report in this article, should you want to do a bit of light reading, maybe you can print it out, leave it on the coffee table to waft through. And I just want to thank you both for your time today, both in terms of the Tacky Chan development, as well as going on about how we could potentially add a bit of transparency and accountability to the bicycle industry. Thank you very much for joining the Pinkbike Podcast, and we'll catch you next time.

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Featuring a rotating cast of the editorial team and other guests, the Pinkbike podcast is a weekly update on all the latest stories from around the world of mountain biking, as well as some frank discussion about tech, racing, and everything in between.

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