Tires for Light Snow - Trails
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Tires for Light Snow - Trails
I went for a walk today on the trails by my house. The trail is 3-5ft wide, mainly gravel, and I ride it on 40mm WTB Ventures spring through fall. Today it had 1-2cm of compressed snow. I wondered if tubeless (low psi) tires with either aggressive tread or studs would work well? I would be nervous about falling though. Anyone use a gravel/cx bike on trails with just a bit of snow, or snow that’s been compressed but not too icy (if so, what tires)?
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For that kind of snow, I get along just fine on my 35 mm Schwalbe G-One Allrounds. The first time I rode them in snow I was pretty shocked at how good of traction I was getting, especially since they have really tiny 'knobs'. Much heavier or icy, I'm probably on my fat bike, but I do have some studded 700c tires that work great on ice. They are just really heavy and I'm too lazy to change tires for the few rides I might really need them.
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Low PSI on a 40mm tire won't help all that much in snow, I think. For hard pack or, especially, icy conditions, studs do really help. But they're heavy, and expensive...
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good luck w/ your choice. fwiw & as a reminder to myself, what always gets me, is fresh powder over ice. it compacts my tread, lifting the tire over the winter studs, rendering them useless. we don't have those conditions presently. 2 places I remember, from last winter, where fresh powder occurred over ice
- frozen puddle
- unmaintained, paved forest road
ice alone with studded tires is fine, even covered by compacted snow that isn't deep & collapsing. it's just that fresh powder over the ice that gets me. one doesn't need studs w.o the presence of ice & lots of BFers don't use them. but can we really predict the absence of any ice?
- frozen puddle
- unmaintained, paved forest road
ice alone with studded tires is fine, even covered by compacted snow that isn't deep & collapsing. it's just that fresh powder over the ice that gets me. one doesn't need studs w.o the presence of ice & lots of BFers don't use them. but can we really predict the absence of any ice?