After 12,000km on the road, it was definitely time for some new tires.

The first couple pictures show how cracked and worn our old Vredestein Spiders were. We were very happy with them though – not a single flat after all this time!

Unfortunately, we couldn’t buy them again since no one seemed to have them in stock.

Even Vredestein’s official distributors said they didn’t have any to sell us and an email to Vredestein’s customer service department went unanswered.

It’s a real shame that poor availability prevented us from staying with what we think is a great tire. Instead, we’ve plumped for the famous Schwalbe Marathon XRs.

The standard has been set by the Vredesteins and we’ve heard so many good reports about the Marathon XRs. We’ll let you know in another 12,000km how the two compare.