where are the best deals for studded tires online right now (in America)? Looking for cheap 26inch haven't decided if I want to knobby or not.

Thanks!

https://www.biketiresdirect.com/

If you wait for a sale, you can usually get an additional 15% off.

Thanks so much. A question people get tired of answering I'm sure.

Nokians are great, not cheap, though, Mine are 10+ years old, so cost per year can be calculated in.

NB : I don't have 6 Mos of snow and Ice on the ground, here..

Looks like you should stock up in the summer,
as there were many out of stock indications for this year..

Make sure that cheap does not mean steel studs. Unless you are just buying them for a photo shoot or something.

I'm sorry I don't know about studs really; steel is bad?

you want carbide ones as steel is too soft and will wear out too quickly- the new Schwalbe tyres and Nokian use carbide studs

My vote is for Swalbe Winter Marathon tires. I like them because the (newer) models have the tungsten carbide studs, and the reflective sidewalls are hard to miss. Also, where i live in Toronto, Ontario the roads seem to be madly salted most of the time anyway so i wont be missing the aggressive knobs found on the Nokian tires. With so little snow (generally) hanging around on the roads, the Swalbe Winter Marathon tires will do you nicely for the lower rolling resistance and the studs will come in handy when you run into the patchy black ice here and there.

Swalbe = shoveled and salted roads + patchy black ice --> lower rolling resistance,
Nokian = unshoveled and unsalted roads + patchy black ice --> higher rolling resistance , cost more

I just ordered the Swalbe Winter Marathons actually. I was suprised to find them for a decent price here in Korea, everything here is usually 50% - 100% more. I don't know much about studded tires but I really love my standard Swalbes. I bought them for ice not snow really. I like the way the studs are arranged compared to other tires.

I got Nokian Mount & Ground for $45 each from Peter White Cycles. I felt that was very reasonable. For some reason those were half of all the other tires and they fit the bill for me perfectly with the conditions he described.

plain steel is relatively soft, OTOH, a tungsten steel alloy is what car studs use
Nokian and Schwalbe use that metal for bike tire studs too,
hard enough to last as long as the tire itself.

My old Nokian Mount & Ground W 106 stud 26-1,9" tires are still fine..

You have very little clue about what you are talking - right?

so i wont be missing the aggressive knobs found on the Nokian tires

um - where did you get this idea? Nokian has been offering studded tires with less agressive tread than Shwalbe for uhm - yes - forever.

I have ridden in all forms of winter muck and I find that an aggressive winter tire is far more appealing than something less.

Well won't this depend on the riding condition each of us experience?? I mainly ride on roads that are mostly cleared of snow but have more concerns with ice. So, while I actually have aggressive tread on my snow tires I've yet to really need it. What works for one may not apply to another.

Peter White Cycles sells them at a decent price, and your local shop can get them if they use Quality as a distributor.

It's always interesting when someone who doesn't appear to know what they're talking about complains that someone else doesn't know what they're talking about.

Where did you get the idea that Nokian has been offering these supposed tires? Nokian only makes exactly 1 studded tire with a less aggressive tread than the Schwalbe Marathon Winter - the A10. And it has a poor reputation for handling anything more than occasional ice (for which it's decent, but it's suited for more "I want to be protected because it's possible there might be some ice somewhere", whereas the Schwalbe is suited for "my entire route is covered in ice and these tires can handle it").

I have Nokian Extreme 294 - a very knobby studded winter tire, 2.1". It is noticeably slower than my other bike with the Schalbe Marathon Winters on it. It feels slower, but also I've ridden with my dad several times - with the Schwalbes I'm always out ahead of him, pushing the pace. With the Nokian Extremes I'm behind him, often asking him to slow up a bit.

I wouldn´t go that far -if you use them regularly on a mix of surfaces snow, ice and road then the studs will always wear out long before the rubber -but they do last quite a long time- maybe if you only use them carefully strictly on snow and ice and soft surfaces then the studs may last longer.

What are you basing your opinion on?

The carbide studs in Nokian and Schwalbe tires do indeed have an established reputation for lasting longer than the tire casing, from people who commute on streets and bike paths throughout the winter.

I am just basing it my own experience. I have gone through quite a few Nokian´s commuting here (on streets and bike paths) through the Bavarian snow and ice and I can assure you that the spikes are always worn well before the rubber. If you really don´t believe me I can show you a picture of my present Freddie´s Revenz that I have on the back. The studs in the centre do not extend any more beyond the rubber. As you can´t buy this tyre any more I am rotating the worn ones to the back before throwing them away.

Thanks for responding.

I would be interested to hear anyone else's personal experience with studs on Nokian tires. However, as I mentioned, there are plenty of people on the forum who commute daily on Nokian studded tires and say the tire itself wears out before the studs. And they're commuting on plowed streets and such, so more than 50% of their route involves bare pavement.

You're sure they're Nokian tires, not N0kian or Nokiian tires, right? lol

Nokian Freddies Revenzes and WXC300s use MTB studs which have better traction on ice, but wear down on hard surfaces faster, than the road studs used on pretty much all their other tyres.

This could all be settled with a good, old-fashioned, fist fight.

I think the fist fights should be reserved for the bike thieves. Petty bickering on BF is normal

I really hate to enter the arena of petty bickering but have to toss my 0.02 in anyway. . .

I had a Nokian 106 that the studs were no longer making good contact with the road after several winters (and several thousand miles) use. I first attributed this to stud wear but closer inspection showed that rather than wearing, the studs "receded" into the rubber. A colleague was suffering flats with his 106 and found the studs had "receded" enough they were puncturing the tube. While two people's experience is not definitive evidence, it does seem to point to the casing outlasting the studs.

that´s interesting as I had not heard that there might be any difference between the studs used with different Nokian tyres but it is true that the studs on an Extreme 296 do seem to last longer that the studs on a Freddies Revenz.