My rule for tires, year round, is supple knobbies as wide as reasonably fits and still clears mud/snow, detritus. If Rene Herse made wider tires I'd ride their knobbies on all my bikes. As it is:
Quickbeam: 38mm Steilacooms (Rene Herse) Hunqapillar: 2.1" Racing Ralph liteskin Gus Boots Willsen: 2.8" Nobby Nic Addix Points to consider (all of which rule out less expensive tires for me) - Supple rubber (both in type and thickness/thread count) conforms to terrain, providing astounding grip. - Knobbies pattered similarly to those on Rene Herse tires, with supple rubber, ride surprisingly well on smooth, hard roads, and only get better on the more fun stuff. Grin. - A wider tire gives better control in loose stuff, be it sand, mud, or sloppy snow. The idea of using a thin tire to cut through to the under-surface is largely useless in varying conditions. I hope that helps. Also, weight further back and off your front tire makes the loose stuff far easier to ride. Rear wheel drives with weight, front wheel floats and steers better without digging in and getting sloppy. With abandon, Patrick On Friday, December 27, 2019 at 11:28:59 AM UTC-7, Mat Grewe wrote: > > Don't forget the power of acclimating to the cold! Early season 35 > degrees often feels colder than mid-late season 5 degrees... It helps > intentionally under-dressing (safely of course) a couple times early on, > kick-starting the body to get used to the cold. > > Any recommendations for winter tires in particular? I have a mix of rural > paved and gravel roads, often with hardpack instead of clear glaze ice. > Any insight as to how the compass/rene herse knobbies compare to > thunderburts, or other brands, to studs on the various types of hardpack > snow, textured ice, gravel, clear pavement, slushy snot, etc? I've been > rolling on old tires for a while, and soon is the time to expand to better > tires, allowing more days of winter riding to safely occur. Still on a > budget so I only have one wheelset and would like to use one tire for the > winter. > > Mat > Driftless Wisconsin where last winter we saw -35 degrees Fahrenheit; > beautiful for a hike in the woods, a wee bit too cold for a bike ride... > -- 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 rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/d9e98eb6-7bfd-472d-8e81-cfa94352c9cf%40googlegroups.com.
