Patrick - I live in Minnesota and ride year round. Peter White nails it: there is no perfect tire, and conditions vary greatly. I've added a few of my setups and some observations below.
Bike #1: My first designated winter bike was my Quickbeam. I rode it with 38mm studded tires and it was pretty good on everything but a groomed snowmobile trail or winter single track. Not bad on ice, fast enough to get someplace fastish, and it cut through snow really well. Overall, not too bad. I think a 38mm tire is as narrow as I go for anything nowadays, but it was fine. Which led to bike #2. Bike # 2: I retired the Quickbeam from winter duty after the frame became really corroded from the salt, even with fenders. Stuck seat post that took years to remedy, etc. I put 29 inch Nokians on a Surly Karate Monkey, and that was better. I liked more tire volume because the roads get pretty beat up in the spring. Not a great choice for groomed trails, which I started riding recently but it was perfect for everything else. Bike #3: This year, I got on board the fat tire bandwagon with a Surly Ice Cream Truck and 4.8 inch Bud/Lou tires. The tires are huge, and I thought this was the one bike to make all other winter bikes irrelevant. It worked great for groomed trails and tracked single track, but in thick slushy snow (2-4 inches), a 2inch or even 38mm studded tire was way better for cutting through things. There's a little bit of flotation on the huge tires but I think that is vastly overrated from a practical standpoint, unless it's a certain type of snow. I did some fat bike rides that I could have done on any MTB. But the fat tires opened up alternate routes that were safer than roads (abandoned railroad tracks, cross country ski trails, frozen lakes criss-crossed by snowmobiles). Fat tires are kind of fun in a different way, but I don't subscribe to them as being the only winter option. Observation: A basic cheap knobby is not the worst choice. Another observation: I went down really hard on the ICT on some lingering spring ice. I never really did that with narrower studded tires, but I think I rode more carefully with them. Yet another observation: I'm likely going to try the Clem L with 29 inch studded tires next year. I think the long chain stays will be better. Paul On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 1:52 PM 'Deacon Patrick' via RBW Owners Bunch < [email protected]> wrote: > Patrick, I think the fattest Rene Herse knobby you can get fits the bill > for ABQ snow, which is likely wet (dry snow occurring at 20˚F and below, > everything above that being wet). They clear the snow very well, often not > picking it up at all. Until you get into fat bike territory, the "float" > factor is a non-issue (you'll drop through all but packed stuff anyway), > but a wider tire squirms less, tracks better, especially when the snow is > varied due to others before you on the road/trail. My Hunqabeam has 2.1" > Racing Ralph LiteSkins; my Quickbeam has 38mm Steilacooms. I find plusher > tires handle better in the snow, especially when it gets varied, just as > they do better in that same be it rocks/roots/mud/sand et al. > > With abandon, > Patrick > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
