Originally Posted by
cyclokitty
I'm in Toronto as well and want to buy a set of winter tires for my bike. I already use (and love) my Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires (26", 1.75") on my rims so I'm looking at either of the tires above: Marathon Winter or Ice Spiker.
My riding conditions are based on the last several winters we've "enjoyed" in the city, with of course Mother Nature deciding to mix up the rules for giggles, but for the most part my street is rarely plowed clean and there are always ice and snow patches, the right hand sides of the road are usually iced over as well, and this bit is really important, my favourite MUP (the Beltline) is not plowed and stays pretty much a 5 km stretch of packed ice over gravel with a scattering of snow (that will melt and add to the ice layer).
I'm leaning toward the Ice Spiker because I am really tired of spending a winter away from the Beltline. I bet it would be a blast riding the MUP on spiked tires and a nice change of pace from walking gingerly over the ice to get to the cleared roads in the nearby cemetery. But then the Marathon Winter tires would perform better on the roads, especially because the majority of my riding will be commuting on somewhat cleared streets with icy patches? My questions is, how difficult would it be to ride the Ice Spikers on the road or ride the Marathon Winters on the MUP? I can only have 1 set of tires so there will be no experimenting on different kinds of studded tires.
What do you think?
I've used the Marathon Winters and the Nokian Extremes. Both are very heavy, both are slow when you have the pressure low enough to put all the studs down into the footprint. The Nokians are better in terms of snow traction, which is a significant factor for me when riding chewed-up "cookie dough" snow. The Nokian Extreme is also a higher-volume tire, which helps prevent rim strikes and possible pinch flats when running the tire at super-low pressures and riding on nasty lumpy ice, the kind that gets welded to the surface of an arterial when the plows can't keep up with the snowfall.
One plus for the Marathon Winter is the reflective sidewall stripe, if you like reflective sidewalls. I'm sure it's quite puncture-resistant too, there's a lot of meat on those casings (about 1000 grams per tire). But don't buy it and expect it to be, like, "fast."