Originally Posted by
arnijr
+1 on the studded tires, I use Nokian W160s and they have sufficed in any situation. I'm not so sure about the rear brake only argument. I'm certainly more careful with my front brake on ice and snow, but I tend to use it, without problem so far. Perhaps that advice doesn't apply because the studded tires generally have pretty good grip? The stopping distance using rear brakes only would force me to slow down way more than I'd like to. Again, I understand where that advice comes from but I'm just not sure it's applicable 100% of the time we have snow/ice. Now, if I wasn't riding studs, well, I wouldn't be riding at all.
Great advice in this thread.
I guess the point I was trying to make is to use the rear brake
only when you don't know what traction you have. Now "slippery" is just the traction that you have, on
your bike at any one time. If you have studs, you will certainly have more traction than someone who doesn't, so you can certainly use the front brake in a lot of situations. But, for example, in a transition from soft snow to hardpack, the hard pack is usually slipperier, so don't use the front on the hard pack until you have tested your traction with the rear brake.