what tyres is everyone using in this weather? I'm in Devon and we're not used to riding on snow with ice underneath down here!

I use swalbe ice spikers. Not fast, but you don't fall off 🙂

lol, cheers for that, I just checked them on the web – they look the biz but a lot of dosh for (very) occasional use

Conti Mountain King worked very well yesterday (I didn't die)

I've been surprised at how well my Speedkings have done in the snow. Wouldn't want to risk using them on hard ice, however…

Onza Porcupines

Nothing grips ice except spikes. Snow is fine with whatever you ride with normally bigger the better and a tread that clears well will help.

As Jonb said. Soft powderey snow is fine, ice and your on your ass whatever tyres you use.

But I would choose the dirtiest tyres you have as the snow really cleans them up 🙂

doesn't really matter, just run them at 15psi and avoid jumping.

Hardly worth changing your tyres for the amount of time the snow stays around in the South West, just get out and enjoy the snow with whatever tyres are on the bike (just tried one of my bikes in the snow with a Larsen on the back and a Dart on the front, and it seemed fine).

thanks all, I'm gonna stick with my Maxxis high rollers (definately no jumping!) and hopefully the extra layers will help cushion any landings!

Bonty ACX are excellent. 2.2
Conti Verticals are outstanding too. 2.5
Most aggressive / mud biased tyres will do well in snow.
I'm having a ball out there at present1
Ahead of the freeze.

Maxxis Ignitors are good in the snow as as Bonty Mud X's

torn between 2.5" diesels, or 1.5" crosscountrys.

i would go with "any mud tyre" i think

My Trailrakers have been doing pretty well. Reliable amount of grip on ice and chomp thru the snow ok – but they did struggle a bit this morning with 12" of fresh stuff from last night 😛

I have 2.1 TrailRakers and they're not wide enough for the soft snow we had today.
It was 5.5 inches deep and in the virgin snow it was like riding through slightly thicker air.
Remarkable!
Loved it.

Panaracer Fire XCs for comuting duties, Tioga XC SL for the deep stuff. Both 1.8s. Tiogas are fantastic in the snow, but truely awful on any patch of bare tarmac.

Mud X's run tubeless at 25psi

Still running Racing Ralphs and have been out for hours on them tonight. I had no issues, but the road climbs on the way back might have been an issue if you weren't carefull. I think the guys on more nobbly tyres suffered a bit on the icy roads, but off road everything worked.

My nevegals do well in regular snow. Narrow enough to cut, wide enough to grip. On deep stuff they don't do so well though, not enough float in the 2.1s but deep snow and shallow snow are really 2 totally different sorts of riding so you can't expect one tyre to do them all.

Nothing grips ion ice bar steel spikes though.

anything that can take a surly endomorph 3.7" tyre rules in snow…,they will push through a bit more than regular tyres when it gets deep (10-12") just look at what people ride in countrys which get this weather every year…you can ride snow on any tyre though the fatter and lower the pressure the easier…wont beat a proper ice tyre for proper black ice but the endo`s are amazing on it compared to regular mtb tyres…2.5 conti desiels proberly your next best for a regular mtb… esp if on a wide rim..

the CX was surprisingly capable tonight… we reckon on what we were riding (twisty woody singletrack) it would have been slower on a mtb.

t'was an ace ride 😀

i took my snow tyres off the nite and put my 2.3 panracers on. droped the front down to 20 and back to 25. and found it great ride through forest trail ..

Some are confusing the advantage (in mud) of a 1.5 / 1.8 mud tyre with a full sized 2.3(+) aggressive knobbly tyre in the snow.
They're not the same.
RRalfs in this weather made me smile.

Ti29er

I'm a stubborn oldgit, after a season of slip sliding about in cyclo cross I don't care about what I run anymore. Though they are surprisingly capable.

Running nobby nic tubless, just kept dropping pressure steadily till I was mostly going where I wanted, measured them when i got back, about a smidge under 15psi on the front, and a little more at the rear. Draggy as hell, but i got up a really compacted icy road

I just kept mine at 40PSI. Last night we rode up hill that still had several stranded motorists on, it must have been a strange sight the six of us cycling up the icy road while they struggled with every material known to man under their tyres to get going.
You could hear the road creaking, it would have been ideal for ice spikes.

Oldgit – try 1/2 that and feel the grip!
It's what you do in deep sand with car tyres and on ATC vehicles.
40 psi is the opposite to what's actually best in snow.
Look at how Mother Nature makes things easier: at camels feet (sand) or Reindeer's feet (snow) as to how the load is best spread for the prevailing conditions.

Rode my Intense 6.6 with Rubber Queen 2.4 front and Ignitor 2.35 rear and my Cove Stiffee with Nobby nic 2.25 front and rear around Chilterns and Swinley. the Intense was sliding about a lot, the Cove had a bit more grip. Both bikes had me sliding merrily on my back-side on packed road ice.

Gotta say the whole thing was a good exercise in learning where to put your body weight. Changing my riding style (keeping knees well bent and body weight as low as possible and shifting about way more) on both bikes had far greater effect than the difference between the tyres.

Lowering the PSI helped massively although I did then inevitably pick up a slow puncture in the Nobby. I’m 70kg and was running the front nice and squishy and the rear a little firmer.

I’d say concentrate less on the tyres in the snow, and more on the way you ride.

nice and squishy = somewhere between 15 and 20 psi.

Snow chains. Work a treat and can be produced for around a fiver for two wheels.

Dogsby

Ice spikers. Had them for two years, and had about 2 months use out of them now. Expensive yes, but I’d have been sitting in the house otherwise.