Spinning on Winter Tires
 

Hi everyone,
I have a question for the forum. I just “winterized” my 26” K2 Zed aluminum beater bike by mounting some very knobby WB Velociraptor 2.1 26x47/52 (52-559)tires. Unfortunately, it is now really hard to spin at a respectable cadence & produce speed over 8 mph when on dry pavement. I use the granny gear but often feel like I am spinning without really moving. I can speed up the bike by riding in a lower gear or standing up on the pedals but that beats on my knees. FYI-I use a 22/32/42 "MTB" IsoFlow Truvativ (triple chainring) crank arms. I would prefer to stay off my road bike with thinner & slicker tires until spring. What can I do to improve the situation? Did I buy the wrong tires?
Thanks,
Neil

Welcome to winter riding. My studded snows drop an easy 10 RPM from my cadence and 3-4 MPH from my speed. On the plus side, I'm usually a bit faster come spring.

If this were the Road Forum, I just say HTFU;) But I suppose we have to be nicer here:rolleyes: 8 mph on dry pavement with knobbies seems a little slow. When I ride pavement with off-road tires, it slows me down some but not that much, especially with a low geared bike like yours.

What pressure are you running? If I'm going to ride knobbies for any significant amount of distance on dry pavement, I boost the pressure to around 65 psi. If I need extra traction or want to ride off-road, I lower the pressure to something more appropriate.

How long have you been riding? Some of your problem may be strength related if you haven't been riding long or if you've only been riding road bikes...we're back to that HTFU issue.

How cold is it? Cold will make you ride slower. It usually has a 3 to 5 mph effect on my speed, depending on the temperature. Below 20F, it's just plain harder to ride. From 35 down to 20 is easier but I'm still slower than I am at 60, 70 or 80F.

You may also want to gear up in the front. Riding in a 22 tooth granny means that you are doing a lot of rpm to go anywhere. Ride in the middle chainring unless you really need that 22 to go up steep hills or negotiate deep snow.

I agree with above, ive just come to accept that its slower going in the winter, i run two different bikes in the winter both MTB frames one with slicks and the other with 2.2 in the back and 2.1 with studs in the front and ive noticed its slower but only a little (around 6-7mph overall) I any more just completely ignore my speedo its too damn cold to care how fast im going:)
I run my knobbies at max pressure, until it snows then i bring them down according to how much snow falls that helps a lot.

The tyres you need in winter depend on the winter you have.
In the UK its normally cold and damp, maybe raining (less than you imagine) and very occasioanlly snowy and icy.
I use my slick 26x1.9"Big Apples all year round but this year when we had an extended freeze I made some studded tyres from cheap knobblies. I chose 1.75" for clearance.
Big wide unstudded knobblies may be best for rutted snow but overkill for anything else.

Came here to say this. Even with small hills or a headwind I wouldn't be on the 22. Wouldn't get anywhere.

The WTB Velociraptor is a pretty bad tire for road use, mainly due to the paddle style rear tire. The tire will roll like an octagon. I used them one winter and couldn't wait to use something else. 8 mph is pretty slow still.

Without knowing where you live or your winter riding conditions it is hard to make suggestions. I am in upstate NY and ride my slicks year round. However, tsl is in western NY and has multiple types of tires. The terrain that some people ride also varies.

In the conditions and terrain I ride there are maybe 3-5 days a year that I would get benefit from different tires. The roads get plowed and salted pretty well and I ride on pavement.

Yeah - what state do you live in? It makes a big difference.

It sounds like you got knobby tires, but not studded tires...so non-studded knobby tires. Is that right?

Hi,
Thanks for the replies. Please let me respond:
• I ride non-studded knobby tires.
• The tires are fully inflated.
• My non-winter bike is a Surly LHT with smooth tires.
• The air temperature usually runs between 18F and 25F when I ride.
• I live next to Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
• I have a bad knee so my riding is usually a bit slow even on the road bike.
• I experimented with riding on the middle front chainring but that limited my ability to use a range of cogs on the rear cassette & still ride comfortably. I should explain that I prefer to maintain a high cadence to avoid straining a very shakey knee ☹
• Typically, local plowing where I ride is poor so I bought knobby tires to cope with snow. However, the local roads are surprisingly clear now.
Does the above change anyone’s recommendations or suggest solutions?
Please let me know.
Best,
Neil

'Fully inflated' has far more meanings when it comes to mountain bike tires then road tires. Generally, a 'fully inflated' road bike tire has one pressure...or a very narrow window of pressures. A mountain bike tire may have 30 or 40 psi when off-road riding and be fully inflated (for that condition). It may be used for road riding and be inflated to 60 or 70 psi and be fully inflated for that condition. If you are riding in snow or on poorly plowed streets, you may want to run a lower inflation than the road pressure but a little more than off-road to improve traction.

18F to 25F is pretty cold. Air temperature can have a severe effect on your speed. Your muscles don't work as well and you are more nervous about the road conditions. If your normal speed is 12mph, the cold and the knobbies could easily bring your speed down 4 mph. Add to that spinning in a rather low gear and I'm too not surprised at your overall speed.

You may want to find a gear calculator and look at your gear ratios. You don't need to always stay in the granny gear to spin. Many of those gears are duplicated elsewhere but you need to know which ones they are. A gear calculator will help.

If it's warranted, you may want to consider studded tires instead of knobbies. Where I live I seldom have any kind of need for them...it just doesn't snow that much and when it does it gone quickly. However in the east your snow and ice linger longer. I don't know that you'll get any more speed out of the bike but you might.

Altenatively HTFU:D If you want to get more speed, you need to do something to strengthen that shaky knee. A visit to a physical therapist or doctor might be in order.

Or, lastly, enjoy the ride. It's not a race. You're just going to work. Only a truly sick bastard wants to get there quickly;)

Thats my winter bike. You may be overkilling it a bit with the knobby tired MTB.

Pedaling energy is absorbed by the disconnected knobs of knobby tires . thats just Physics.

the tread elements move with the torque of the turning wheel .. on an object that wants to stay at rest.
until it's in motion and you want it to stop.

Well...honestly, this is the tough situation a lot of people face. If you ride knobbies for snow, you're a lot slower on clear pavement. But if you ride skinnier studs you're completely safe for cleared (or relatively cleared) pavement, but it's tough when a snowstorm hits (though nothing works great then, frankly).

A lot of people have 2 winter bikes for this reason. Skinnier studded tires are definitely faster than the big knobby ones - the fastest I know of with excellent grip on ice is the Schwalbe Marathon Winter. I only lost about 1mph between those (35c) and the 28c summer tires that were on the bike before them. (Well - at full pressure when the worry is only occassional patches of ice, when there's a lot of ice I have to lower the pressure and they're not as fast, but nothing else is either).

On the other hand, a bigger knobbier tire is better in snow or in the "snow packed down on the road" kind of stuff.

So...I dunno. I know I live in Minnesota and personally I won't ride without studs in any conditions where there might be ice. I know people who do, but they always have a crash at least once a year no matter how big their non-studded tire is (well, not counting Pugsely riders, lol). So it's difficult for me to hold back from saying "Why are you running non-studded tires when there might be ice?" :-)

I was having this problem for a while...then I took the bike computer off my winter bike and its all better.

For your conditions it sounds like a tire with a relatively slick center or closely packed knobs with more spaced out knobs towards the edge should work.

Basically the center part would help with rolling while on asphalt, and when you hit snow and your tires sink a little the knobs would help with traction. This of course depends on the type of snow you get.

The WTB Pathway Comp Commuter Tire, WTB Vulpine Dna Mountain Tire, Kenda K-rad MTB Tire looks about right. Or something with an inverse tread pattern like the Continental Town & Country MTB Tire should also work (All found on the Nashbar website).

Yes.. even on your best summer bike, you are going to be slower in cold weather. It's probably trying to push all that cold, dense air.

Re: Spinning on Winter Tires
 

Thanks everyone for the great replies. Please keep them coming!
FYI: By "fully inflated" I mean that I have inflated the tires to a maximum, rock hard state.

+1 Thats the reason theres no computer on my winter bike:)

I'm doing winter riding for the first time too. I just got the Swalbe Winter Marathon tires on my Specialized Hardrock Disc. It is sooo sluggish compared to riding on my road bike. I think it is perfectly normal. I keep reading though, come springtime we are going to fly!