Chitown_Mike

So my wife and I went to 1 car, which means I commute my butt the 4.5 miles to work. My ride takes me either along a large busy street (w/ and w/o a bike lane) which leads to industrial/commercial roads, or I can take the busy street (where the BL ends) to a MUP and take that as a cut off to the industrial roads. The MUP isn't plowed in the winter to allow for CC skiing and sledding, the streets are, but when the snow is falling during rush hour all bets are off.

So I was doing some reading and I currently have an old C/M frame Trek 800 that I converted to a dropbar setup with STI shifters. The rear hub we trashed so right now it sits. I want to start collecting parts for the winter and wanted to see what people like the best when it comes to wheel size, studded tires are a given of course.

I have the option of staying with a 26" wheel OR upgrading to a 700. I currently have 26 x 1.95 Conti Double Fighter IIs on it which are great for 3 season but suck big time in the snow. I have read several commuters liking 700 x 35 tires. I understand the 26 will require more "work" to push through the deeper snow but they allow for a larger "foot print" in the snow which technically gives more "float" (terms relative of course), whereas the 700 should technically "slice" through the snow and will have less rolling resistance overall.

I already have a good set of 26" wheels so I am generally leaning more that way. I might just get a good hub for the rear rim and take some time over the summer to rebuild it. But I do have the calipers to convert the bike to 700 wheels and I do know those parts might be more plentiful, the caveat here being I'll need to stretch the rear frame to fit the modern spaced wheels.

Does anyone have experience commuting on both and have thoughts?

tjspiel

There are 700c studded tires that are much wider than 35mm so from that standpoint I'm not sure there's much difference. It really depends on what will fit on your bike.

If your trails aren't plowed it's going to be hard with a standard bike no matter what tire you go with. A fat bike might work OK but even they have their limitations.

If you stick to the streets then you can really go either way. I've ridden on 1.95s, 32mm, 35mm, and 40mm studded tires. The 32 mm were completely worthless, the width might have been OK but they didn't have enough studs. 35s are good for streets that are kept fairly clear of snow. They're pretty decent on ice (as long as you don't go crazy).

40mm is what I use most of the time, but the streets around my house aren't plowed well. The 1.95s I used for a couple years really weren't any better, and maybe a bit worse.

If you already have a good set of 26" wheels, I'm not sure it's worth the hassle to convert to 700 just to be able to use the 35s. Studded tires are lot of extra work to ride on so the 35s might make it a bit easier but that's about it. You're commute is not outrageously long.

Chitown_Mike

Which is why I have no issues doing it....the issue is the interesting people that I deal with along the way.

tjspiel

I only meant that if your commute was 15 miles instead of 4.5, then it might be well worth modifying your bike to allow you to use lighter, thinner winter tires, - assuming the road conditions allow for it. Since your commute is shorter, the wider and heavier tire may not be that much of a penalty in terms of total effort.

The thing is that studded tires make for harder work whether the roads are clear or not. I would guess that on most days in a Chicago winter the roads are in pretty good shape, but with studded tires you take a hit on performance even on bare pavement. The more studs, the more aggressive the tread, the heavier the tire, - the bigger hit you take.

PaulRivers

If everything else was the same, I would definitely go with 700c.

I've ridden both 26" and 700c on a mountain bike. The only advantage 26" has it that you can turn the wheel faster - think tight corners, your turning radius is small. So your 26" wheel could turn around some sharp corner at higher speed than a 700c wheel.

But a 700c wheel rides over everything (with the same wheel size) noticeably easier. While I am not a professional, I was just test riding, a full suspension 26" felt almost exactly like a 700c hard tail. In other words, the larger tire made ruding over debris and stuff on the trail much easier.

Whether it's worth it to put the effort into converting is not a call I could make over the internet.

dynaryder

If that frame was designed for 26's,you prolly won't be able to fit fat(2"+) 700/29er tires. I prefer 26" on my bad weather bike because the selection of 2"+ tires is better,and wider is better for traction in snow.

Edit: from the pics I saw on Google,I def don't think that'll take fat 700's.

wolfchild

I have both 26 inch and 700...For commuting on city streets which often have "traffic snow" and a lot of slush I prefer to use narrower 700 tires, when I say narrow I mean something within 35-38mm wide... In my experience narrower tires are easier to ride because they roll better, and cut through snow and slush on the roads. Wider 26 inch tires just float all over the place and it's harder to steer and maintain a straight line...My 26x2.1 inch tires are mounted on some wide downhill rims and they are great for riding frozen and hard packed off road trails but not so great for traffic slush...I think it all comes down to personal preference. I mean you can use any type of winter tires you want and they will get you through the winter, but some tires just make riding a little easier.. Very skinny cyclocross tires are great for winter riding and provide a lot of traction on snowy, slushy roads, the only downside with them is that if you run into a patch of ice then you may go down and most of them don't have very good flat protection, it's safer to just use studded tires.

wolfchild

I agree. That's exactly what my experience has been...I find 700 or 29'er wheels roll a lot easier over rough terrain then 26 inch wheels....Long time ago when 29'er bikes came out people used to think it was a just a "fad" which was going to pass away... Rigid forked 29'er MTB's have become very popular for trail riding and racing.

dscheidt

Chicago roads are mostly plowed, but it depends on the timing of the snowfall, and the route you're taking when that happens. I know lots of people who commute without studs, and most of them fall a few times each winter. There are also a fair number of days, particularly early and late in the winter, where the roads are icy that I wouldn't ride without studs.

PaulRivers

Yeah.

They say that suspension was originally designed to keep your tire in contact with the road rather than as any sort of comfort thing. I was pretty amazed that the 700c mountain bike I road felt like it had the same amount of suspension as my 26" mountain bike (to be fair it was just one extended test ride and ancedotal). Like I said can't say in the OP's situation whether it's worth the extra effort, only that if I were buying a new bike I'd definitely go for the larger tire in winter.

Chitown_Mike

So for costs sake, at least this winter, I am sticking with 26" wheels. I did score a CL buy of Nokian Extreme 294s and looking to get a spare bike for parts (figuring having 2 sets of wheels, one studded and one not). I'll probably get some knobby non-studded tires for the "dryer" days.

The roads around me are plowed, one is a state route/main street, so that isn't the issue. The issue is the bike paths aren't plowed and usually plowed in, so traction is my main focus, speed later, so I will probably spend some time on the studs and just have to leave earlier.

As for fitting a fat 700 tire, I haven't gotten that far into but from sizing up with my standard 700x23 tire on my roadie I measured nearly an 1" of space between the top of the tire and bottom side of the fork.

-=(8)=-

Im not a fan of fixie's or the culture, but in Vermont I was exasperated in my efforts to find a bike that would work in snow for the full 12 miles and it ended up being one of those BD/Mercier fixies. The 23-700's carved through the snow rather than sat on top of it and the direct drive made traversing it somewhat controllable. Much more so than my knobbied MTB which just lumped up with snow and became a rolling snowball after a mile or so. So yeah, for me, skinny 700's

fietsbob

Nokian Mount and Ground W tires 26x1.9 .. works fine , for me ,

not so studded as to make a bare pavement and ice mix an issue ..

Its an episodic weather situation here , so Im still using the same tires I got in 1990.

spare MTB waits for freeze ups Drum brake wheels s since they only had cantilever brakes on them back then..

frame a repaired 1st generation Stumpjumper ..

FrankHudson

Know the old saw about how many words Eskimos have for snow? Same for winter bikers and road surfaces. There's deep snow, light snow, wet snow, slush, ice, black ice, rutted ice, and more. I rode for a number of years in Minneapolis urban snow as a 5 miles each way commuter and then last year started winter biking regularly, though not daily, again. When I started I used a Raleigh Sports 3spd with the most aggressive tread I could find. I bought one of the earliest production mountain bikes in the 80s and rode it with 2.25 knobbies. Without studs I did fall (but less than you'd think) but I was never not able to ride in or back from work. I worked an evening shift, so roads were not always plowed at midnight. For deep drifts I had to portage for a few yards sometimes. Eventually I got a job with a longer commute and regular needs to carry things around and visit other sites, which ended my bike commuting.

Now let's stop forward to last year. I have been biking for a couple of years and wanted to keep going during the winter and I went with a 700c IGH disk brake bike and fitted it with Continental studded tires. I believe they are listed as 42s, but that's at the outside of the knobby outer tread. The "body" of the tire is like a 35 or 32. For some conditions this tire would be ideal. The rubber is extra sticky and the studs do help on smooth ice. Riding through fresh snow they'd work OK. Slush or the like, no problem. Disk brakes=wonderful. However, last winter in MN was bad with snow, freeze, re-snow without the streets being cleaned. As a result, many streets for much of the winter were a mess of frozen ruts of ice and highly compacted snow. The relatively narrow 700c tires didn't like that. I wasn't rolling over things, I was trapped in ruts that running almost in the direction I wanted to travel, until they crossed diagonally with another rut. Though I never wanted to go back to rim brakes and wasn't wanting to return to keeping a derailleur/chain combo clean and working well, I wished I had gone with wider tires on a frame that would take them. I saw other folks hacking it on narrower tires, you could ride--but for me, perhaps with rusty bike handling skills, it was less fun.

Frankly, the hot setup in that cold winter was Fat Bikes, with the monster low pressure tires. Alas, that's quite an investment to get one currently. I ridden them on snow and ice. They're a blast.

In summary: my recommendation is to go with as fat a studded tire you can fit on your 26" rims and frame. Narrower tires might have slight advantage in slush or light un-compacted snow, but for your shorter commute you want to handle the bad days, rather than be just bit faster on the good days. The extra air volume will let you survive un-avoidable winter potholes too. A 29er with clearance for fat as will fit and can be found studded tires might be better, but is an extra investment.

Mr IGH

I've ridden both sizes in Chicago, I prefer the 700C x 35 (Kendas). I found the 1.9" Nokians too draggy, esp since the streets aren't really that bad most of the time. Only about 10% of the time the studs were being used (and without them it would be very dangerous), 90% of the time I'm pushing slow, studded tires on pavement.

tjspiel

In the 10 winters I've been bike commuting last year was the worst by a long shot. Two years before that it was far warmer than usual with very little snow. It's almost as if you could walk into a bike shop and take two of every type of winter tire they sell and eventually you would find yourself in conditions that suits each one of them.

fietsbob

There are studded tires for fat bikes now .. Sun bikes [Thru J&B i think] makes one with a Nu Vinci Hub and disc brakes
(studded tires not included)

Motolegs

Thank God it's not Winter or Chicago here.

PaulRivers

Good luck.

I won't ride in the winter without studs. I'm extremely adverse to risking breaking any bones, and the medical bills if I were to do that are obscene, even with insurance. There's no amount of plowing that gets rid of all ice all the time, since studded tires make dangerous ice into a non-issue, I will not ride without studded tires if there's any chance of ice on the road. My Schwalbe Marathon Winters are a little slower than my summer tires at full pressure (running them at high pressure leaves only 2 rows of studs in contact with the ground, running them at low pressure leaves 4 rows of studs in contact with the ground), Nokian w106's are a cheaper alternative.

There's really no point in knobby non-studded tires for "dryer" days because knobs help with snow but don't help with ice at all. Better to get relatively slick skinny studded tires for dryer days - they'll roll about the same speed as non-studded knobbies, but protect you against ice.

Wanted to mention there are 2 alternatives for worse days:
1. Take the bus. That's what a lot of people do when it's snowing massively - don't know if that's possible where you are, but when it's really, really snowing the bus moves better than a bike.
2. If the MUP is the majority of your route, and not to far from you - you could possibly ski to work. It sounds crazy, but skis, walking, or the bus on a route they keep plowing are the only things that can really handle travelling while there's a ton of snow coming down.

P.S. Just keep in mind that the Nokian Extreme 294's are noteably slower on cleared roads than a skinnier studded tire. Don't think that all of their slowness is because of the studs.

DogBoy

I've ridden 26x2.1(Kenda), 26x1.9 (Mount and ground), 700x37 (W106s) and 700x32 (A10s). All of these are worthless on an unplowed MUP. In fresh snow I've found the 26" versions significantly better than the 700c versions. My favorite winter tire is ths 700x32 A10. It is not good for snow or unplowed conditions, but it rolls well and is most like a non-studded tire. I use it to protect against the freeze/thaw/freeze cycle that puts black ice on otherwise clear roads. All of these tires are heavy and not fun to ride. I must not have as sensative a feel as others on the 26 vs 700 rolling ease. I can't tell the difference between a 700 and a 26" wheel in terms of ability to roll over things. If I had your bike, I'd stick with 26" tires since thats what the frame was designed to handle.

bikemig 

I like the continental contact winer II tires. Obviously not as good as a studded tire for heavy snow/ice but very good for lighter stuff and mixed pavement/snow/ice. I'm using 26 x 1.9 since that what my bike was designed for but they come in a variety of sizes.

Edit: I like converting vintage bikes into commuters cuz they're relatively inexpensive. The best platform bar none, IMHO, is a vintage MTB which means you will be riding 26 inch wheels. They're cheaper than road bikes, widely available, take fat tires, and have eyelets for fenders, rack, etc.

That doesn't answer the OP's question but it is something to keep in mind as he stockpiles parts for a commuter and a backup. If you are going to do this on a regular basis, having 2 bikes is a plus.

Mr Pink57

I actually have a Trek 800 Sport that is used for this application or was at least until I got a fat bike. I have used 1.95 all the way up to 2.3 studded tires in 26 700 and 29 styles. And what I would say it is depends more on the bike then the tire width, obviously more studs will slow you down but it will also be a safer tire if there is ice. A more upright position in snow I think is much better then being hunkered down on a road bike, nice comfortable stable flat bar goes a long way in the winter. Lowering your seat just a little also helps so a foot can be put down much easier without tilting the bike (during the winter months I drop it a little lower then normal).

bikemig 

+1 on the value of a flat bar for commuting in winter.

Chitown_Mike

On the really bad days I have an AWD CR-V that loves snow, just means the wife either is stuck at home or she needs to get up with our 2 boys and drive me. I just don't want to rely on that contingency plan too often, especially since I much prefer cold weather vs hot (you can fix being over dressed in the cold, but you can only go so far in the heat!).

Although the ski idea isn't too bad since there is sidewalks and such that I could stay on all the way to work. The buses around here would take me almost an hour, I could walk that fast and probably would if I needed to. But I wasn't expecting speed to get to work just safety, and I rode a bunch last year on some mud tires on my old Trek so I definitely know about slow tires. The extra weight just means a better winter workout!


Dogboy, thanks for the input and the Nokians I got are a 2.1 wide so they will max out in my frame and may limit my fender usage so we will see.

Chitown_Mike

I love the bike, even with a drop bar I am still very upright since I am running the stock stem. The only thing I might change is to put cross levers on the tops since that will probably be where I spend most of my winter riding in.



This is the current setup, well it is apart but you get the idea. However I will be using a different fender.....that was a DYI attempt that worked OK.