Originally Posted by
dscheidt
It's a stud. Made of rubber. Really. They work nearly as well as carbide studs, and dont' damage the pavement. Also, modern studless snows work better than studs almost all the time. The remaining exception is icy surfaces (not snowy) when the temperature is right around freezing. Colder than about 20 F, studs don't bite ice any better than rubber, and really cold, rubber wins. That's cars and light trucks, bikes are different, because the pressures are so different.
Having ridden studs on ice (and driven them in a car) on ice, I don't agree. The argument is that the studs are not as effective on dry pavement and that's an issue because you don't have ice 100% covering the surface.
Around here (Minnesota) it gets plenty cold and where I live, it's not unusual to have ice covered roads for weeks at a time. Studs (carbide) work great. Rubber does not.
J.