You can’t discover the former whilst the latter is true. Either you’ve been lucky, or you’ve tried very few tyres. Sooner or later something will change and it becomes a bit more of a faff.
I practiced on lots of tyres before 2 years ago, and failed lots. The difference between a master and a student is the amount of failures one has had 😉
Like you said, Schwalbe tyres have been a PITA with changing their ETRTO between 2011-2012, and then what appears a scatter gun approach to diameter sizing – resulting in a few splattered walls, and one destroyed shirt.
I know now what tyres fit my rims, and I’m generally sticking to them. I’ve tried a few different recently – Geax, On One, Bonty… and they’ve all gone up fine, actually all of those were a dream to seal.
I still prefer Conti tyres, but they do leak a lot, so need a good scrub with IPA and a little patience. Plus they do destroy the bead over a number of rides, which makes them unusable as tubeless before the tread has gone. So my mates get a free £50 tyre to run with tubes 🙂
