Hello, I recently moved to Maine, and would really like to keep riding trails even in these snowy, icy conditions. So, I'm hoping for some advice. I initially thought a fat bike might be in order, but after diving deep into Surly Wednesday research, I've decided that it's just not for me -- I'd much rather ski, or even snowshoe, if there's a significant amount of new, unpacked snow. What I'm mostly interested in riding is our local, hilly, graveled trails that are fully snow covered and that see a lot of foot traffic even in winter(walkers, skiers, snowshoers, fat bike riders, even some snowmobiles.) So here are my questions to those of you who have experience with winter trail riding...
1) I can fit a 2.6 tire on my Susie. Is this fat enough to ride snowy, icy, chewed up, packed trails? I'm sure it's possible, but is fun? I know a fat bike would give better float, and roll over everything more, but would my plus sized 29er tires handle it ok? Would it float enough and roll over enough to make investing in a set of VERY expensive 2.6 studded tires be worth it? Or will it just be mostly a slog? 2) Regarding studded tires...I've used 40mm wide Nokian Hakkas for wintertime commuting in the city, but am going to need something wider, something designed for trail riding. The two best options as far as I can see are the Schwalbe Ice Spiker Pros and the 45North Wrathchilds. The Schwalbes only come in a 2.25" width, the 45Norths in a 2.6". Obviously, wider sounds better, but there are some mitigating factors... On the one hand, the 45Norths are considerably more expensive than the Schwalbes. They have less studs, and they seem to be prone to exceptional stud loss and have garnered a number of negative reviews. There are two versions of them, though. One, a 60TPi version with "regular" sized studs; two, a 120TPI version with "XL" sized studs. They are similar in price. From what I can gather, the 120/XL version seems to be the version that sees the most stud loss and is the one almost all of the online negative reviews reference. Does anyone have any experience with either of these versions? Is my assumption that the 60TPI loses less studs correct? What do you think of this tire generally? Is it wide enough for packed, snowy trails? On the other hand, the Schwalbe Ice Spikers are much less expensive. They have considerably more studs. Their current version seem to have far few negative reviews. But they are .35" narrower -- that's 9mm! I would think that this 9mm would make a huge difference in performance in the conditions I'm looking to use them in, but maybe it won't? Maybe 2.25 and 2.6 tires will be comparable? Maybe the greater stud count and better reviews and lower cost outweighs the extra width of the 45North? What do you think? Thanks for whatever advice you might have. Oh, and in case it makes a difference -- I'll be running them with tubes and will not need to ride these tires on pavement before getting to the trailhead(it's right outside my door, practically!) Thanks, David -- 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/102cccef-ddb1-420a-b2ba-1241b115acfeo%40googlegroups.com.
