Originally Posted by
mtalinm
my not-fat friends who ride Marathon Winter studded tires say they are just as fast on bare pavement as regular tires. I experience a 10% or so slowdown, and I can tell I'm pedaling harder.
I'm wondering whether this is because my extra weight creates more tire drop, thus leading most of the spikes to touch the road whereas skinnier folks only get the center spikes.
Marathon Winters are rated for 70psi, and my regular Marathons are OK up to 100. I'm wondering whether I should try pushing the Winters up to 80 or 90...will this damage the tire? I'm guessing not but thought I'd ask around before trying it...
I wouldn't push the tires much above the rated inflation rate, we know that technically the real maximum inflation rate is more then the stated maximum, we just don't know by how much, which is the danger with over inflation. See most inflation limits are lawyer limits, the engineer designs the tire for a given inflation rate, usually something beyond what would normally be seen in the field. The lawyers want big fat retainers for sitting on their butts, so they want a low limit, to prevent law suits that require them to get off their butts and go to court. Marketing wants a high limit, because of the perceived notion that a higher inflation rate, means a stronger, better product. So they negotiate, the only thing that is known for sure is that the maximum inflation is lower then the limit from engineering. A studded and non-studded tire may have the same name, look the same, but completely different design and construction.
Another thing, studded tires can do a lot of damage to bare pavement, which is why they are illegal for cars in many places, so we are coming into the season where, we need to decide when to take the studded tires off. There are a couple of solutions, another bike which doesn't get studded tires, or another set of wheels without studded tires, where so you just swap the wheels rather then the tires.