Schwalbe Marathon Winter Studded Tyres

Yesterday was a new tyre day, this one was slightly more exciting than normal as it was my first set of studded tyres. They have been a long time coming, in December of 2008 I fell on black ice riding to work and started looking at studded tyres then. At the time neither of the bikes I owned would take any width over 28mm and I’ve yet to find studded tyres thinner than 35mm. So it was one of the motivating factors in choosing the Ridley Crossbow to gain clearance for wider tyres and guards and give me a strong all weather bike. Now like all good intentions they got swept away by the travails of life. So come the heavy snow and ice early this winter I was still studless and all the shops that sell them were rapidly running out of stock. So after much searching I found stock of the Schwalbe’s at Star Bike in Germany.

Now I had originally wanted the Nokian Haka’s but Peter White’s information suggested the Schwalbe’s would suit my needs just as well. But of course they went out of stock just as I ordered, so two weeks later they arrived. First impressions, the tyres weren’t as heavy as I expected them to be. Removing the Vittoria cross tyres of my wheels I did notice that they were half the weight of the Schwalbe’s. The tyres went on the rims fine with no tightness and I remembered to check for rotation arrows, all though the chevron tread pattern seems to go in the opposite direction to what would seem logical for grip but after further rumination it seems designed to shed snow easily.

Having fitted them I was pleased to see that there is plenty of clearance all around the tyres front and rear.

Tyre clearance

Venturing out to the clear roads round my house the first thing I noticed is the weight of the tyres relative to the light cross tyres, they drag like they’ve punctured. At this stage I was running them at 65psi (min is 34psi max 85psi) so a little more air will let them run faster. The studs were not as noisy as I was expecting, they sound like you are riding on pea gravel. so not too irritating Heading  further out into the Chiltern hills there was small patches of ice which the tyres rolled over with no mishap. At this stage I was taking it very easy and not accelerating hard or throwing it into corners. As I headed down the quiet country lanes the patches of ice turned into sheets which I cracked as I rode over with full traction. It is a very bizarre experience to ride over surfaces that easily when I would have hardly dare to walk on them let alone ride normally. The first few large patches of sheet ice were heart in mouthe experiences, but after a few times it just became normal if slightly surreal.  It will be interesting to see how the tyres peform over time and on snowier surfaces, whatch this spacfor updates.