Studded tire solutions for early phases of winter?
 

Hi,

My wife and I have been commuting here in Wisconsin the past four years and winter commuting is a blast with studded tires.

However, in Wisconsin, especially at the start and tail end of winter, there are a lot of days of clear pavement mixed in with the occasional day of icy roads. I hate wasting away our studs on clear pavement.

We ride internally geared bolt-on hubs so taking the wheel on/off every other day to switch out the tire (or even wheel) isn't ideal.

Does anyone have any solutions they use for these in-between seasons? I see chains, zip-on studs and other options out there on the market; I'm curious if there are any success stories. I'm open to the idea of building up a second wheelset (for use in, say November/December and March, leaving the studded wheelset for January and February) with non-studded tires plus some traction solution; I just don't want to be changing wheels/tires on a daily basis.

Thanks!

There are a couple of non-studded winter tires that might be worth a look. I've one set each from Continental and Michelin. They work surprisingly well so long as you don't actually need studs.

You could also run a low stud count tire like the Suomi A10 and, in my case, the Suomi Stud 62.

What tires are you running currently?

Save yourself a lot of work, have one bike ready to go with studs, and one without.
For each of you.

I use two different bikes during winter. One is set up with studded tires the other with regular touring tires.

High-quality studded tires like Schwalbe and Suomityres use studs with a tungsten core. The worst you can do to these is to blunt the ends a little. The carcass will fail before there's significant wear on the studs even if all you ride is clear roads.

The 'carcass' on my Schwalbe's failed yesterday. I noticed a flat on the rear. Upon close examination of the inside of the tire found that the studs here wearing through to the inside, puncturing the tube this way. I've had about four winters worth of use from these. Mileage wise perhaps 5000-7000 total. I usually run the pressure a tad higher as most of the rides are not necessarily on snow or ice.

There is also significant stud loss on one side of the tire.

So looks like time for a new set.

I have 2 winter bikes, ready to go with and w/o studs. Old mountain bikes are cheap and make great winter beaters. FWIW: I’ve ridden a set of Suomi Mount & Grounds for at least 8 years and they show no signs of giving up so I wouldn’t worry about wear. The last couple years I’ve ridden them less as I have W240’s on my 29er too. Crashes suck so if there’s any chance of ice, I ride studs.

A friend of mine had the same. He cut up an old thin tire to function as a tire liner between SMW and tube.

Or another set of wheels

You can put a Mr Tuffy in there and get a little more life out of it. Or just get new tires. Never a bad excuse for new bike parts.

It depends. If the dish is exactly the same, so the bakes don't need to be centered, and if the limit screws on the RD don't need to be adjusted. Could be fine. If you have the space and the budget for another bike, you can decide, last minute in the morning. YMMV.

Well...depending on the studded tires that can into into $$$. Some of the fat studded tires are $200+ a pop

That's the price you pay for being a crazy person riding in ice and snow.:D

I thought about it. Although this time it was just a single stud wearing through I can see that others are going to fail soon too. There are just too many to worry about, and too big a chance to take that I don't get a flat. Getting a flat with a studded tires means that you're changing under really poor weather conditions.

Now now, my coworkers don't say I'm crazy...they say "you're (expletive) insane !"

Living in Minnesota, I really don't like to ride in the winter without studs at all. Studs protect you on sheer ice. In my experience most sheer ice happens in the spring and fall when it snows, then melts partway, then refreezes.

I've been using schwalbe marathon winters. If you run them at low pressure you get 4 rows of studs on the ground. If you run then at high pressure only 2 rows of studs stay in regular contact with the ground. 2 rows is enough for short patches of ice.

All quality studded tires use steel carbide studs which even ridden on blacktop should last longer than the tire does.

I may be the only one, but I find your nested quote posts to be impossible to decipher with any reasonable amount of effort.

Not again.

My apologies. I didn't realize that you are already aware of the incomprehensibility of your posts.

You're not the only one.

+1
This is what I do.

been pondering the same question/issue myself. just mounted up some studs & as my schedule opens up for night rides I'm wondering what will be in the woods. we had 14 degrees after snow, so there was plenty of ice. now it's 40 & raining. this afternoon it occurred to me this is a lot like spring. for example, on one spring ride last year, the roads were clear so I road a bike w non-studded tires down to the nature preserve where I was met with ice & so I rode home to get another bike that still had studs on. on another ride later in the spring, I rode my studded bike over crunchy crusty ice just thawing out so it wasn't slippery & didn't really need the studs & the aggressive winter tires were really slow. the single winter I bike commuted, I put the studs on when the invisible ice showed up & kept them on until the roads were reliably clear. at least my thighs weren't skinny that spring. took my car's snow tires off last February due to a lot of warm days including up to 78F degrees. then in April we had 4 nor'easters with tons of snow & blizzard winds. it's nice to have a variety of places to ride & a variety of bikes & tires to choose from. 1/2 glad I don't bike commute anymore