Originally Posted by
daven1986
As I am about to start year round commuting I have decided to get a set of studded tyres. Am going for the Marathon Winters because here in London we don't usually get much snow but we do get a lot of ice. How much better are these than making your own studded tyre?
(sorry for the bit of a hijack!)
Thanks
Daven
I've never made my own, but the local LBS owner advised me to do so, said he made his own all the time. However, he went down the procedure; buy a box of screws and a pair of fat tires, spend an hour driving the screws in, then buy a pair of tire liners. By the time you buy all that crap, you've spent at least $35 or $40 per tire, and that's about what a pair of Nokian W106s cost.
Add to that, he said "...and you only have to replace the screws once a year or so" - but the carbide studs on proper studded tires last many years. By the time you get done, I think you'd have spent more money on the DIY tires than on commercial ones, and spent a lot of time screwing
around with them too. After weighing these considerations, I just bought a pair of Nokians.
Personally I would go with the Nokian W106s. Rolling resistance IS a little higher, but it's not great on either of them and the Nokian is cheaper.