Old 10-31-08, 02:53 PM
  #18  
patrick07
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: South Michigan
Posts: 516

Bikes: 2005 Specialized Langster, 2005 Giant TCR C3, 2006 Bianchi Castro Valley, 2007 Redline Monocog 29er, 2007 Trek 5000

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Originally Posted by andrelam
I paid about $30 each for mine last Fall as I was not sure how much I'd ride through the Winter and found it hard to justify spending $52 each for Nokias. The steel studs pretty much ground down to the near worthless level in 2 months of use. I had one of my tires "blow up" while the bike sitting in my office. Holy c@p that was loud and startling. Turns out the bead failed. The tire was back-ordered for 2 to 3 weeks. I could not be off my bike that long so I orded a Nokia W106 from Peter White as a replacement and had it in one day. The tread between Nokia and Innova looked shockingly similar, but the big difference is between the steel and carbite studs. When we got some bad ice in February I went around a corner slowly. The Nokia front tire held on just fine, but the Innova rear tire did not get enough grip... and the bike and I went down hard. Lesson learned... steel studs are pretty much useless. I just bought an additional Nokia W106 to replace my one remaining Innova tire. My Nokia that I rode on for about 3 months last year shows pretty much no significant wear on the studs!

If you want the tire for the tread, I'd say just leave the studs in place. Within a little while they will be worn down even with the rubber and so the won't help nor harm.

Happy riding,
André
The bead failure that you mentioned almost happened to me when I put them on last week. The bead itself didn't tear but it seems like it wasn't "hooked" enough to catch the lip of the rim. I had to deflate the front tire really fast while I watched the tire slip completely away from the rim.

I did remove the studs anyway. I wasted about three hours doing it but they look pretty good now. I've gotten great traction in loose dirt with them and that's really all I was looking for. In the winter, because my commute is relatively easy, I use my Monocog with WTB ExiWolf tires. They're not studded but the wide tire and nicely spaced lugs handle slippery (black ice, ice chunks) conditions pretty well.

Next time I get studded tires, I'm not going for the cheapest set I can find.
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