[nonoy_d]

Its winter and there are not enough snow on the ground except Colorado, NM. Here the trails are icy and studded tires would be a must.
Well I tried the search, but could not find much thread about studded tires. I know there are several manufacturerers out there. There is not enough on the review of the studded tires except for Nokian Brands. Obviously the more available and popular specially the extreme. Any input on other kinds e.g Nokian freddies, Schwalbes, Kenda klondikes, Innova. What area your experiences?,
How many studs originally in tires and how many are missing after several rides.
What strengths weaknesses?
Help others be informed...Thanks Have a Happy Winter ride

 

[tscheezy]

I searched the Wheels and Tires board for "studded" and got 72 threads on the topic.

 

[nonoy_d]

Nothing specific to my questions though

 

[warton]

i have a set of cheap studded tires for around 3 seasons now and they are holding up well.......they are called blizzards....not sure who makes them or if i spelled it correct....but all the studs are still in place....some of my buddys running the nokians seem to lose half a dozen studs per ride....then they install replacement studs....the down side of the blizards is they are heavy (wire bead etc)and seem to have a hard rubber compound, and not as many studs in them as the nokians....also they are not a very large volume tire...but good enough to ride around in the snow and ice when your not going very fast anyway....

 

[pinkheadedbug]

Nokians or Schwalbes, with the carbide studs, are the ones to get. Peter White Cycles has good reviews:

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/studdedtires.asp

Great service, great people. Give them a call.

 

[nonoy_d]

PH
Thanks, I viewed the web site, very informative. Seems to me that the ultmate is Nok freddies revenge lite. At their website at $98.00 it would be a bargain, although jenson has a future sales pending availability at $91.00.
Since I need it badly, and prefer the bargain, I ordered kenda klondikes which has a lot of studs (254ish). I have not seen reviews on thist though.
Once I ride on it I'll give my thoughts...

 

[nonoy_d]

Kenda Klondikes XT 2,1

Got my klondikes and rode them on my Jekyll 600 Disc, There are no reviews about this kind of studded tires. I got the tire for $54 each, from webcyclery thanks to MTBR. The webcylery service is great but thats another story. The tire is not specific for front and rear.
It is nylon, and when it arrived it came on the large square box as the tire is not foldable.
the weight of the whole package was about 8 lbs, it did come with extra stickers from the store and has dirtrag sticker, and 661 sticker in addition to the webcylery sticker.
The tire is so stiff however I was able to replace the front tire myself but gave up on the rear tire and brought the rear tire to LBS. The tire has 252 steel studs.
The ride, totally different considering there are just some dusting of snow on the single track and not enough to provide traction. But I noticed the difference, there was minimum fishtailing and the front tire slipped so little. More confident with going down as I could break with out much fishtailing.
I would say it is like riding a muddy trail or loose pack trail sans the mud or the dust. I did bike with less to zero hike a bike. The bike however got heavier and it is noticeable as soon as you pedal. In addition to the bulky snow attire, everything is just heavy. So far I enjoyed my ride 1/21/2007 did about 14 miles (twice the loop) and rode over a frozen lake.
I would say 5 chiles for the price. 4 chiles as it is heavy

 

[SingleTrackHound]

You will find that studded tires are grippier when trail is riddled with ice and hard pack snow but not so well on soft and fresh 4"+ snow. You will soon not notice the 1000gm tire.

I run Nokian Extreme 120 front and Kenda Klondike 160 rear.

 

[nonoy_d]

Hats off...

Man great bike and heavy tires on a single speed hard tail wow!!! I salute you...:thumbsup:

 

[SingleTrackHound]

Just a dedicated winter ride for snow, ice, and mucky condition using cheapo Nashbar steel frame. I will lighten it up in spring. I threw some studded tires on this winter and I am very stoked with their performance. Studs are only on the outside knobs but plenty of grip. I bought some Nokian Hakka 300 also but haven't had the need to throw them on yet.

 

[pinkheadedbug]

One thing I did notice is that my 29er rolls through/over an inch or two of snow WAY better than my 26er. On the 26er it feels like you're towing a dead weight and will just grind to a halt if you stop pedalling. The 29er coasts much better. (This is true with or without spiked tires).

On the other hand the 26er is FS and handles chopped up trails better than the HT 29er.

 

[SingleTrackHound]

Any input on other kinds e.g Nokian freddies, Schwalbes, Kenda klondikes, Innova. What area your experiences?,
How many studs originally in tires and how many are missing after several rides.
What strengths weaknesses?
Help others be informed...Thanks Have a Happy Winter ride

So far I have lost 3 studs on my bike this winter. I have Nokian Extreme 120 (120 studs) on the front and Kenda Klondike w/ 160 studs. Lost 2 on Nokian and 1 on Kenda. Nokian definitely has softer rubber compound and has better overall grip. Both tires have studs only on the outside of knob of the tire; Nokian is much farther outside than Kenda. I use this configuration so that studs make better contact with ice during cornering for front tire but rear tire gets better forward bite for climbing/pedaling. This is somewhat necessary for my setup since both tires do not have abundance of studs in both center and outside.

I use this tool from Innova (http://aebike.com/page.cfm?PageID=30&action=details&sku=TL5260) to replace the missing ones for both. Even though Nokian uses carbide and Kenda uses steel studs, Innova tool and its steel studs go in on both tires without any issue and are holding up very well.

 

[fsrxc]

So far I have lost 3 studs on my bike this winter. I have Nokian Extreme 120 (120 studs) on the front and Kenda Klondike w/ 160 studs. Lost 2 on Nokian and 1 on Kenda. Nokian definitely has softer rubber compound and has better overall grip. Both tires have studs only on the outside of knob of the tire; Nokian is much farther outside than Kenda. I use this configuration so that studs make better contact with ice during cornering for front tire but rear tire gets better forward bite for climbing/pedaling. This is somewhat necessary for my setup since both tires do not have abundance of studs in both center and outside.

I use this tool from Innova (http://aebike.com/page.cfm?PageID=30&action=details&sku=TL5260) to replace the missing ones for both. Even though Nokian uses carbide and Kenda uses steel studs, Innova tool and its steel studs go in on both tires without any issue and are holding up very well.

The Extreme 294 is the same tire but with studs on the inside as well as outside.