What winter tyres are you using

HullBorn

Hi,

I currently have slicks on my mountain bike 26" wheels. I'm thinking of changing them now winter is coming.

My commute is mostly road. What tyres do you use/recommend.

Cheers

Wayne.

cooldad

On the road, slicks.

bompington

Yep, slicks. No amount of tread, width or anything else makes any difference on the road.
2 exceptions:
Ice - only studded tyres will work. But you would need to be prepared to do one of these things: put up with them all the time, change the tyres when the weather changes, have them on a spare set of wheels, or on another bike.
Deep snow - go fat.

HullBorn

Thanks, I've never ridden on slicks before so wasn't sure how they handle the winter weather.

cooldad

As bompington said, nothing except spikes will help on ice, but they are useless on any bits of road without ice, so useless unless you live in the North Pole or Finland or somewhere like that.

Bike tyres aren't wide enough to aquaplane, so tread makes no difference on wet roads.
And nothing will help on wet leaves.

FishFish

cooldad wrote:

And nothing will help on wet leaves.

.....as I found :oops: out this afternoon

reformedfatty

For once, this winter finds me prepared.

I've got a road bike sporting normal road slicks for those rare warm dry days
A cross bike with a set of spiked tyres standing by to go on when it gets cold enough
A fatbike for the deep snow
And err.. 3 mountain bikes in case of monsoon conditions I guess.

doomanic

reformedfatty wrote:

For once, this winter finds me prepared.

Me too, my car keys are always to hand...

swod1

I've got some off road mtb tyres on mine as I go off road on the way home a few times a week if its not raining heavy and slicks would be useless.

In your case I would stay with slicks on the bike as most roads you will use you'll know the conditions better than us, I don't think I've ever seen any cyclist in my area use studded tyres, the roads get well gritted here.

The Rookie

I commute year round on normal slicks, they even work on sheet ice if you ride carefully, stopping is the only problem!

rockmonkeysc

I commute all year, in all conditions on a road bike with slicks. I wouldn't use a mountain bike for commuting, they're rubbish on tarmac and there's more to wear out. A single speed road bike is the perfect winter commuting bike.

cycleclinic

Cant be bothered changing wheels so I ride my MTB with its Geax Saguro tubulars glued on. Fine tyres for the road.

Whether an MTB is any good on the road depends on the MTB. A full susser which has you sitting upright will be poor on the road. A XC race bike which you adopt a road position on is much better. Remove all the suspension and you have a bike you can do a club run on if you like and dart of road when it please you.

The Rookie

RockmonkeySC wrote:

A single speed road bike is the perfect winter commuting bike.

That depends on the route (gradients) the tallest gear I can get up the worst of my hills with has me spinning out on nearly 2 miles of a downhill.

I run 1x9 (although 1x5 would probably work well enough - or even a 3s SA hub gear at a push).

bigmitch41

Storm controls

cooldad

Bit rubbish for commuting.

bigmitch41

cooldad wrote:

Bit rubbish for commuting.

Sorry CD I just went off the title.

City Jets in that case

N0bodyOfTheGoat

I'm using 700x38c Marathon Crosses, they roll well on the road and installed on my FatNotFat 29er rims in less than a minute each without levers!
I've literally just discovered come in 26" flavour too.
http://nextdaytyres.co.uk/details.aspx/ ... TB-26/1896

Kojaks and Marathon Supremes would be lighter in the Schwalbe range, but in their rough guide, the same level 5 rolling resistance.
https://www.schwalbe.com/en/tour.html

Briggo

The same ones that are on my bikes for the rest of the year.

bompington

Good luck with that round here

LimitedGarry

After full summer of Maxxis Ikon, I ran the rear tire nearly bald. So I put the front Ikon on the rear and bought Ardent for the front.
We got first flakes of snow yeasterday. Nothing that would stay on the ground for more than five minutes, but it might be an indication that we'll have a white winter this year.

Really not going to buy winter specific tires. If it really does snow, I guess I'll just be riding tarmac during winter. Got a 2Km climb less than kilometer away from home. Good enough to keep shape

cooldad

Snow, hills and trails is an awesome combination. Great fun, and most tyres work well in soft snow, as long as it's not crazy deep, when it becomes hard work. Ice is different.

The Rookie

LimitedGarry wrote:

After full summer of Maxxis Ikon, I ran the rear tire nearly bald. So I put the front Ikon on the rear and bought Ardent for the front.
We got first flakes of snow yeasterday. Nothing that would stay on the ground for more than five minutes, but it might be an indication that we'll have a white winter this year.

Really not going to buy winter specific tires. If it really does snow, I guess I'll just be riding tarmac during winter. Got a 2Km climb less than kilometer away from home. Good enough to keep shape

Crap for Commuting though aren't they?

Off road snow (unless really powdery which is rare in the UK as its not cold enough) is probably the grippiest surface you can ride on!

Briggo

The Rookie wrote:

Off road snow (unless really powdery which is rare in the UK as its not cold enough) is probably the grippiest surface you can ride on!

Not sure why people panic when it comes to a bit of snow, its grippier than the slush we have at the moment where its just mud and wet. For road riding as mentioned you dont aquaplane etc, the only thing you have to be weary of is ice and no tyre other than a specific ice tyre with spikes will help but then theyre not great for non-ice surfaces and how often do you do a 5 mile route thats pure ice...

Now, for cars is a different matter and people need to learn to get winter tyres in sub 7 degrees, and that includes you 4x4's, that 4wd doesnt help braking.

LimitedGarry

The Rookie wrote:

LimitedGarry wrote:

After full summer of Maxxis Ikon, I ran the rear tire nearly bald. So I put the front Ikon on the rear and bought Ardent for the front.
We got first flakes of snow yeasterday. Nothing that would stay on the ground for more than five minutes, but it might be an indication that we'll have a white winter this year.

Really not going to buy winter specific tires. If it really does snow, I guess I'll just be riding tarmac during winter. Got a 2Km climb less than kilometer away from home. Good enough to keep shape

Crap for Commuting though aren't they?

Off road snow (unless really powdery which is rare in the UK as its not cold enough) is probably the grippiest surface you can ride on!

The Ikons are nicely fast tires and can be taken pretty much anywhere. Mostly home on hardpack, but I've ridden them on technical climbs where the sensible thing would be to have something along the line of High Roller II. They were far from ideal, but they were good enough. They wear down pretty slowly, so no problem riding them on tarmac. Did well over 2000km on them before the rear one got worn out and I weight over 100Kg.
I haven't put much mileage into the Ardent yet, but I can say straight off it's not slowing me down when used as a front tire. If anything, I'm a bit faster in terrain because have the front more grippy than the rear gives me quite a bit of confidence. I'm thinking there is some noticeable resistance, but it may be simply me looking for it too hard. I'm running the Ardent slightly under 30PSI with a tube.

In short, I would pick a different set of tires for a commuting-only bike, but for a bike that's supposed to go fast anywhere and everywhere, including tarmac, I think it's a pretty sensible combo.

LimitedGarry

Briggo wrote:

Not sure why people panic when it comes to a bit of snow, its grippier than the slush we have at the moment where its just mud and wet. For road riding as mentioned you dont aquaplane etc, the only thing you have to be weary of is ice and no tyre other than a specific ice tyre with spikes will help but then theyre not great for non-ice surfaces and how often do you do a 5 mile route thats pure ice...

Now, for cars is a different matter and people need to learn to get winter tyres in sub 7 degrees, and that includes you 4x4's, that 4wd doesnt help braking.

The problem with snow is the same as with dry leaves. On it's own, it's not really an issue and can be ridden over easily. The problem is, you don't know what's under that snow and in one of the worse scenarios, it might be ice. Not a problem when you're just rolling over, but as soon as you engage the brakes...

The Rookie

LimitedGarry wrote:

The Rookie wrote:

LimitedGarry wrote:

After full summer of Maxxis Ikon, I ran the rear tire nearly bald. So I put the front Ikon on the rear and bought Ardent for the front.
We got first flakes of snow yeasterday. Nothing that would stay on the ground for more than five minutes, but it might be an indication that we'll have a white winter this year.

Really not going to buy winter specific tires. If it really does snow, I guess I'll just be riding tarmac during winter. Got a 2Km climb less than kilometer away from home. Good enough to keep shape

Crap for Commuting though aren't they?

Off road snow (unless really powdery which is rare in the UK as its not cold enough) is probably the grippiest surface you can ride on!

The Ikons are nicely fast tires and can be taken pretty much anywhere. Mostly home on hardpack, but I've ridden them on technical climbs where the sensible thing would be to have something along the line of High Roller II. They were far from ideal, but they were good enough. They wear down pretty slowly, so no problem riding them on tarmac. Did well over 2000km on them before the rear one got worn out and I weight over 100Kg.
I haven't put much mileage into the Ardent yet, but I can say straight off it's not slowing me down when used as a front tire. If anything, I'm a bit faster in terrain because have the front more grippy than the rear gives me quite a bit of confidence. I'm thinking there is some noticeable resistance, but it may be simply me looking for it too hard. I'm running the Ardent slightly under 30PSI with a tube.

In short, I would pick a different set of tires for a commuting-only bike, but for a bike that's supposed to go fast anywhere and everywhere, including tarmac, I think it's a pretty sensible combo.

If you had bothered reading the first page you may have saved a lot of typing there - you never know!

tenohfive

I was just about to post about this.

I commute on my roadie running 25c Pro4Endurance's, but have been contemplating what I'll do in the unlikely event we get any snow or ice. The commute is a mix of main roads and country lanes.
My old, crap, heavy MTB doesn't really get used anymore but I've been considering sticking some new tyres on it (which it needs anyway) that will cope slightly better. Any recommendations that won't break the bank?

Briggo

LimitedGarry wrote:

The problem with snow is the same as with dry leaves. On it's own, it's not really an issue and can be ridden over easily. The problem is, you don't know what's under that snow and in one of the worse scenarios, it might be ice. Not a problem when you're just rolling over, but as soon as you engage the brakes...

Feel free to put those ice tyres on.

cycleclinic

Why not cross tyres. A tually the marathon tyre is one of the better choices for commuting.