Winter Cycling - Opinions on Nokian W240's ?

I'm just curious if anyone has these and what they thought.

Since this winter is winding down, I want to get some ideas for what to do next year while things are still fresh in my mind. There were several weeks earlier in the season where I was riding daily on streets having rutted ice covered with a layer of churned up snow. The W106's didn't do so well and my old MTB with Kenda Klondikes wasn't much better.

I'm thinking of using an old Bianchi Project 3 for my winter bike next year. It's a MTB with 700c wheels and lots of clearance. I'd probably put dirt drops on it. Alternatively, I might just build up a cross frame.

Although I've never been a fan of using two wheelsets in the past, I'm contemplating it now. One set would have the 106's for mild snow/ice conditions and W240s (or something else) for more extreme conditions.

Thoughts ?

This is what I do regarding tires. The utility of W240s, though, depended for me on the winter. They have been essential for me few years ago. The subsequent few winters I might have used one W240 once in a blue moon. Then, this winter I rode two W240s more than half of the time.

With the goal of speeding up the tire swapping, I've got a couple of extra items, tire brush and tire bead jack. Upon organizing my work, I am down to 15 min in swapping two tires.

One obvious advantage, in planning ahead the purchase, is that you might circumvent the periodic shortage of winter tires.

Everyones skill level is different as are riding conditions, that said here are my results from riding all winter in Anchorage.

I have two bikes, a Surly LHT with Nokian W240's and a MTB with Nokian Extreme 294's. It is suicidal to ride in the main rodes here, parallel routes work for the w240's, when roads are plowed.

For safety I rode most of the winter on Extreme 294's. There where days when a truly fat tired bike was needed, like the Pugsley.

FYI, I found out, this spring to late to ride with, that the LHT can run Extreme 294's in the front w/o fenders. I had a fender on the back so I didn't try that combo, but next winter I will remove the fender and give it a go. I say the fatter the better, more stud's !!, safety first.

greg

Over the past four years I have progressed from 106's to 240's to 294's.

This last winter I rode a Surly Karate Monkey frame set up as a fixed gear bike, with 294's and a rear fender.

I had one day I could not ride, for the first time in four years.

It involved a freakishly dry, cold and granular snow, and it felt like the deepest, softest beach sand imagineable.

I simply could not get enough speed to make riding to work practical, and so I turned around and got in my car and drove to work.

The 294's didn't fail to do their job.

Nature just finally presented an unrideable form of snow.

Otherwise, I really like the 294's over the 240's.

It took a little experimenting to find the right tire pressures, and, for me, that came out at about 40lbs for the rear and 37lbs for the front.

In terms of rolling resistance I didn't see much difference between high and low pressures, but the tires felt much more secure and accommodating at lower pressures.