JonathanGennick 

Mine arrived yesterday. I'm a little underwhelmed now that I see the tread up close and in person. The proof is in the riding though. I might get them mounted by the weekend.



So glad for the instructions!

rumrunn6

lol yeah who needs instructions on how to mount a tire right? actually since reading some tips & watching some YouTube videos I printed & laminated a little cheat sheet just to be sure I was starting in the smartest spot & going thru the procedure in the most efficient way possible. I never look at it tho! I'm usually in such an eager rush I just bang into the job & eventually get 'er done. I could be smarter & my tip sheet is supposed to help with that. and I think tires look funny (poor choice of words) when they arrive all flattened out, meaning nothing like I expect or have seen as mounted tires on-line. keep in mind that our own finger prints are pretty underwhelming to look at them, but amazing at what they can do ...!

JonathanGennick 

Well, I guess people do. Two of the fold-out sheets seem to have the instructions in 29 languages. The layout used on the smaller sheet differs from that on the first, but both appear to be instructions. Then is a much smaller page with a warning in four languages about using the tires on rims designed to be run without rim strips. The warning is actually an interesting read.

rumrunn6

rim tape? not familiar with rims that don't use it

JonathanGennick 

I can't find the warning itself online, but here's a thread on another forum discussing it:

https://weightweenies.starbike.com/f...c.php?t=132918

The scenario doesn't even remotely apply to me.

rumrunn6

yikes I got 1/2 way thru that & my eyes glazed over

dh024

The tread on those tires look very similar to my older Top Contact Winter tires. I love them for the shoulder season where you can mostly avoid the ice on the roads. On ice, they are somewhere between a lightly studded tire and slicks, but they roll more like slicks. On heavily packed snow, they are fantastic, and roll superbly.

I have liked them so much, that even in the middle of winter when things are really icy, I have left one on the back of my cx bike and changed out just the front to a studded tire.

Hope you like them as much as I have liked their predecessor.

JonathanGennick 

Got them on the bike! They feel confident on cold pavement. Now just need some snow and ice for a real test. It won't be long.

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rumrunn6

congrats. assuming they are directional, did you get them on correctly? what is their pressure range?

JonathanGennick 

The are indeed directional. (And it's surprising how often I get that wrong even after checking carefully). The high-pressure limit is listed as 65 psi. There is no low pressure limit given. I have them set at 25 and 30 psi just because that's sort of my default starting point.

rumrunn6

cool, looking forward to updates throughout the season!

JonathanGennick 

Got in my first ride today on the Top Contact Winter II Premium tires. I was able to explore a variety of surface conditions.

Complete confidence on packed snow like in the white areas of the road in the photo below. The tire will find any traction that's there to be had.

On the ice in the photo, I had "good enough" traction for straight line travel. (I'm talking about that icy strip on the left) There is not much traction to spare though, and I'm not sure I'd want to descend a steep hill on that same ice.

I had trouble on a segment of the return trip where we were ascending a slight hill from the lake going back toward town. Going downhill toward the lake was no problem, but for some reason the tires were sketchy on the return. Some small ruts didn't help, plus there was an off camber road surface. Had to put a foot down once to keep from crashing when the rear end slid completely out. Another time the front end broke traction, but I recovered.

Continental bills these tires as eBike tires, but I recommend caution. The jerking from an eBike motor could be enough to break traction on the driving tire. The slicker the conditions, the less assist I'd want, even to the point of turning the assist off entirely.

I do like the tires. Plan to run them all winter. Just imho be super cautious on slick ice. I'd buy a studded version of these in a heartbeat.

Bikewolf

Does anyone know how these tires feel (in autumn) when it’s raining and the road is wet? Do they give you more confidence, grip?

JonathanGennick 

I got in a few rides with them on wet, cold pavement before the snow hit. They felt excellent in those conditions. I had plenty of grip, and confidence in the turns.

rumrunn6

guess you live with these conditions pretty much 'till spring up there? or do the roads clean up at all? btw, impressed with your pogies / barmitts. what brand?

JonathanGennick 

The pogies are from moosemits.com. Highly recommended.

Difficult to generalize about conditions. The roads do clean up given a few sunny days and warm enough temps for the sun to melt the ice. M-94 was clean when I returned from the airport the other night. Not sure whether that was due to more traffic or more salt or more frequent plowing or some combination thereof. The road in the photo is H-58. Given the weather out my window, I expect conditions will remain ice covered for at least today.

This year I believe we had only five months w/o snowfall, and I'm not fully certain about the five. I miss the warm already!

rumrunn6

you & the Canadians are leading the pack for us "southerners" waiting our turn. gotta keep a stiff upper lip, right?

Bikewolf

Thank you!

Because I have the impression these tires are very good for those times in autumn-winter when it’s not so icy but often wet.

JonathanGennick 

I would tend to agree, and that's likely down to the cold-weather-friendly rubber compound that is used. Even at 25 F yesterday, the rubber felt soft and compliant.

Bat56

I rode with these tires last winter and I have them back on my bike this winter. I will take them off when >50% of my commute gets icy and I will put them back on when things clear up. I basically keep two sets of wheels ready and swap out the wheels when conditions warrant. Generally speaking though, I keep these on too long and ride them into some sketchy conditions. My bike has disappeared out from under me a times with these things. That is to say - studs are WAY safer. I just can't stand the snap crackle pop of the carbide studs so I tend to prefer these when I can marginally get away with it.

When these are most dangerous is when I am on walking or biking paths that have iced-over ruts from other bicycle tires because these tires get in those ruts and ride in them and will not climb out the way studs do. So my bike gets sucked in one direction and my body goes another. I do not stay attached to the bicycle for very long when that happens. I do not experience that problem on the roads as much.

GrainBrain

Can you feel the breakaway point when riding on ice?

JonathanGennick 

There should be an award for Best Turn of Phrase .

Banzai

I rode these for part of one winter. Went to studded Schwalbe Marathon Winters and never looked back.

PaulRivers

To do the usual BF thing of completely going off on a tangent, what's the deal with the "never looked back" phrase? People seem to be trying to say "much better than before" but people don't look back because they don't want to see the scary thing behind them.

I bought some schalbe marathon winters and looked back repeatedly, and every time I thought "yeah studs are waaaaay better than no studs were".

lasauge 

I've been using the TCW2 tires for several years now and my experience is the same as Bat56's above - they're great in the typical winter conditions I encounter most of the time here (light snow, minimal ice), but if there's serious ice then nothing works short of studded tires. As for frozen ruts, they are the worst part of winter cycling and I have yet to find anything that can overcome a wheel-trapping groove... maybe a studded fatbike tire would solve that problem, but we don't get enough of a winter where I live to make that a reasonable investment.