Quest For Tire(s) Part Deux

Boy, that was a great movie!
Prehistoric man in an epic quest for medium rare meat!
Even though we were teens when we saw it, I remember a good discussion about it, especially the language since I noticed they had consulted Anthony Burgess, who wrote A Clockwork Orange.
Vivid memories of celebrating the find and being stuck in a tree with sabre tooths below make this one a must see again!
Not what this is all about though, see post title.
That's right!
Quest for tires!
Tires!
Okay, this isn't even the original Quest for Tires, that would be this post here.
Actually the quest has been going on since then for as you know, there are like a GAGILLION different tyres out there(notice the spelling) and making an informed decision is almost impossible.
Almost.
The easy thing is to just get what I'm riding on now, but that would be way too easy!
I would never give up the fun and excitement of having to look up and research every single tire available in internets land.
I seem to have a lot of time on my hands.
So anyways, right now I'm riding Specialized Nimbus tires:



They're great!
Like Tony the Sabre Toothed Tiger!
Sort of.
I mean they're tough, they last a long time, and they're not very prone to flats.
Well, they did inspire the name of this blog so that may not be entirely true.
Big S does make an armadillo version of this tire but it's really stiff and heavy.
They also have an off red sidewall that just doesn't match the color scheme of the Flat Tire ICBM and we all know that image is everything.
Well, after months of research, literally, I have narrowed it down to two tires.
Sort of.
Vittoria Randonneur Hypers:



Now these are sort of new so there's not a lot of reviews out there, but I figure Vittoria is a pretty good brand so there shouldn't be a problem.
They have those reflective sidewalls and I'm not too keen on them since I don't hardly ride at night and well, image is everything.
Then you got your Schwalbes.
Now Schwalbe alone makes like a GAGILLION different tires, you can spend like five or six months perusing the website, so choosing a tire from then ain't exactly easy.
It's more like rocket science.
Well, not being a rocket scientist, it took me some time to decide, and I thought I might give them Marathon Supremes a go:



Excuse the graphic but for some reason, Schwalbe uses cartoon like images to display their uh, confections, so it's sort of difficult to see what they are really like.
I've read nothing but good things about this tire except for one thing.
The price.
Which borders on ridiculous.
Now I think I've mentioned these mother of all tires before, and no matter how much I mention them, I cannot bring myself to spring for them.
Which you know if you have been following along at home, is sort of unusual for me.
I guess there are limitations to what I'll spent on my bike.
So anyways, I've been ping ponging between these two wonders of the road, and I just can't seem to make up my mind or hit that order button.
Part of the problem is this time, I've decided to get three of them, instead of rotating front to back, I'm just going to ride the rear to death and change it and hopefully the front gets twice the mileage as the rear.
Hopefully.
I have to admit though, maybe I'm making this a lot more difficult than it should be.
I mean they're only tires.
Well, they do sort of separate me from the ground.
Sort of.
Most imporant, they have to look good.
Image is everything don't you know.
The quest to find new ones shouldn't be this hard.