Originally Posted by
silverwolf
Posting this for a buddy of mine who lives in Colorado. He has a road bike and wants to ride in the winter and other crappy conditions. The frame/fork and wheels are all aluminum and pretty durable for a roadie, and he has installed the standard light set, rear clip-on fender etc.
However the bike still has the road slicks (28c) it came with, and those won't work well in really snowy conditions. The bike has clearance for a 38c tire max, though clip-on fenders versus classic mounts gives some extra wiggle room with size. Anyone here know of a good 32, 35 or 38c tire for packed snow and ice? Studded would be a nice option as well.
Thanks.
First to the Easterners posting above, Colorado ain't like New England! You guys have to suffer through snow that falls in October and forms nasty black piles that stick around until March. I know, I've been there. Poor bastards.
Colorado snow...especially on the Front Range...is very polite. It snows one day and it's gone the next...almost literally. We do have spells (The Great Chanukah Blizzard of 2006 comes to mind) of persistent snow and ice but that, thankfully, is rare. Quite frankly, studded tires are unnecessary in Colorado on bikes
and cars. If anything studded tires make life more difficult here because you have to either change them before each storm or you have to slide all over the place trying to brake on slippery little pieces of metal. A knobby tire and a bit of caution are all that really needed to ride through a Colorado winter. Most days you could even ride the road tires because the roads are going to be clear and dry. I've ridden in 30+ winters here and have never used studs...even during the Great Chanukah Blizzard of 2006.
Silverwolf: if your friends bike will take a 35mm knobby cross tire, that (and a good modicum of caution) will probably get him through all but the worst storm. If the bike won't take a 35mm cross knob, tell him to get a mountain bike...he lives in Colorado! I think it's part of our state constitution that everyone has to have at least one
