How much pressure should I run in the snow
 

How much tire pressure should run in the snow? Higher pressure to dig in deeper or lower pressure for contact area? I usualy run a round 40 psi at this presure I have a little squish in them, like a car tire.

Thanks for the help
chris

Lower pressure typically works better. IN fact you will see where a lot of the experts run very low pressure and actually glue the tire to the rim on one side. I don't prefer the low pressure however. I run slime and if you are running very low pressure, it won't have a chance to work.

It takes a few pounds of air pressure for the hole to seal with slime. Obviously with low pressures, your tire is flat before it ever seals. I rode for a couple hours on Saturday in some pretty good snowfall. I ran around 60 lbs in the tires. I was running a Nashbar studded on the front and a Geax Blade on the rear.

I evenn pulled the sled around a little when i got home. :D


The geax blade really digs in. It didn't even slip when pulling a sled.

http://www.bikesomewhere.com/images/big/ACF3691.jpg

where can I get a geax blade tire?? about how much are they ??

Nashbar also sells the Geax Grid 200 for $10 which would probably be good for snow. I bought one at $5 for use in dust, cinder and loose rock. I guess the Blade is supposed to be the front tire and the Grid is supposed to be the rear. How the hell do you pronounce "geax", anyway?

http://www.nashbar.com/nashbar_photo.../YT-GGBT20.gif

Definitely run the tire pressure lower for more traction. I'm at 35 psi on a fully rigid bike. If you're on a FS, you could run 30 depending on your weight.

as low pressure as possible-I have double wide rims (44 mm) and can get down to about 15 psi -if you have normal rims 17 mm or so then you wil not be able to get so low without pinch flatting