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I've just got back from a skiing trip to the French Alps. I'm glad I took my Trance, fitted with Schwalbe Ice Spiker Pro tyres, as the skiing was poor. Anyway, the tyres were excellent on hard packed snow and ice, so much so that descending a steep red run was perfectly feasible and I had a lot of fun coming down the pistes after dark. It was certainly better than the skiing!
Anyway, I got thinking about tyres after I met a guy out on a fat bike. I know fat bikes are great in the soft snow, but surely their tyres wouldn't grip on the icy stuff! My tyres were great on the hard snow and icy stuff, but no good in the softer snow. So.... surely the perfect tyres for winter Alpine fun would be fat wide/low pressure PLUS the amazing tungsten carbide studs of the Schwalbes? Does such a tyre exist? If so, I'm sorely tempted to get a fat bike purely for winter use.
What do you think?
All the best and Happy New Year!
Dom
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Ooh! That could be the answer, but what bike shall I shod with these beauties?
[url= http://i.imgur.com/VWKmrPYl.jp g" target="_blank">
This is mine - it's a custom, one-off but to give you the idea - has enough tyre clearance for Vee 2XL studded tyres that come in at a genuine, whopping 5" and apparently a revelation in soft snow. Will be using it anger in 8 weeks in the arctic! For riding in snow, probably best to stay-away from some of the trail-inspired fatbikes and look at something like 9:ZERO:7 which are designed in Alaska.
Aren't they like £200 each?
Vee snowshoe xl are available in studded or ready for diy Studs. £65 for the diy versions.
UK RRP for studded Dillingers are £225 - I bought unstudded ones from Germany at a discount and fit Schwalbe studs when needed
there are dillinger 4, 26x4.0 with 240 studs and the dillinger 5, 26x4,8 with 258 studs, both 120TPI
and both quite expensive---but for ice brilliant..
and so much fun on frozen ski runs...
both are available without studs, but these studs are quite expensive..
best prices as far as i know are here..
http://www.bike24.de/1.php?content=8;product=66741;menu=1000,2,103,104;page=4
carbide studs only per 100..
http://www.bike24.de/1.php?menu=1000%2C185%2C188;mid [397]=1;content=7
don`t know if there is a special tool neccesary to fit them..
Thanks for all the info. Why are all my ideas so expensive? I'd like to build a fat bike with a 1X11 drive train, a dropper, decent wheels and brakes and the all important tyres. Better get saving...
What about the Canyon Dude? Ideally I'd like to build up a bike by buying a second hand frame and taking it from there.