For everyone not in Oslo. Shortly after I wrote this, it started snowing and continued for hours.
While I obviously want to try out the 29” a little more, I am also somewhat curious about the 2.35 Kenda ‘Klondike XT’ I bought for use on my 26”.
This morning the weather was very similar to when I first cycled 29” into work. The roads were pretty much clear, bar some smooth, icy patches.
I can now say that the Klondike XT is pretty nice for these kinds of conditions. The thread is not as minimal as a Winter Marathon but also not as aggressive as an Ice Spiker or Nokian/Suomi Hakka WXC. It feels pretty good on bare tarmac, in a way they do not (as UniMyra also commented).
I actually timed myself when I cycled in with on the 29” with a Nokian tyre the other day and it took me 29 minutes. Today on the 26” with the Kenda it was 25 minutes. However, given I could see that there was a real lack of snow I had moved my VCX+ cranks down to the 100mm position. UniMyra’s 29” has 150mms. I suspect this played the biggest role in upping the speed but certainly I cannot discount the tyre. It has no pull in either direction and it felt grippy enough (even on ice), that I had the confidence to go at higher speed. Also, no UPDs except for the initial mount. I guess it has been a (little) while since I used 100mms and I expected the wheel to move more as I mounted (it did not). 
When some real, lasting snow returns, I am not at all convinced that it will be better than the fractionally narrower Ice Spiker I have. Indeed I imagine it will be slightly worse and for deeper snow I will most likely need to go back to the Duro Wildlife Leopard and consider studding myself. Or I could look at buying another 29” tyre to try on UniMyra’s 29”. If anyone has suggestions of nice 29” tyres for snow I am open to ideas.
Now before anyone questions me “wasting money” on tyres for a unicycle I do not own. Two things: my wife will not react (or probably even notice an extra tyre or two) but she might question if I bought more unicycles (it is a space thing as much as anything). Also I am not too worried about buying a new tyre for a unicycle I am borrowing. I’ll either re-use it for something in the future or gift it back to UniMyra (assuming he even wanted it) when I return his unicycle. So if anyone has any suggestion, please be forthcoming. A reminder this 29” is an older Qu-ax, so it can’t fit a really big tyre.
For commuting i really would consider the Marathon Winter. I’ll probably be using my own soon, but as I said you can test it for a week or two if you want.
“Deep snow” you say? I thought with the green city council, the bike paths were cleared almost before it starts to snow (the sidewalks on the other hand…)
I’ve written a couple of “reviews” on studded 29" tyres:
Schwalbe Ice Spiker Pro 29 x 2.25": Schwalbe Ice Spiker Pro 29 x 2.25"
I wrote that this tyre is good on bare asphalt. It’s not. I probably rode it too short to tell.
Studded tyre: Schwalbe Marathon Winter 29 x 2.0 : Studded tyre: Schwalbe Marathon Winter 29 x 2.0
Don’t worry about the uni. Should I ever need it, I’ll borrow it back for a short time. You’ll probably want to replace it with a better 29’er eventually anyway. When that time comes you are welcome to tell your wife that the new one is mine too. 
I have 125 cranks for the 29’er if you want them.
No complaints about the Nimbus Stadium saddle? It nearly killed Ed Pratt.
Thanks for that, the suspense was unbearable! 
Fun to read you guys yaking at each other. And good thing about the Vivaldi photo. I only became aware of that browser recently, and now that I know it’s got some unicycle in its veins, even better!
Well I am person who writes the majority of our blog posts about our test versions (snapshots) and so I am reasonably well known amongst the hardcore Vivaldi fans and some Opera browser fans (my previous employer). I have a twitter account with 1366 followers, which isn’t many I know but I would guess that 90% of them follow me hoping for news and insights into the browser. They are probably wildly disappointed with how much I talk about cycling and unicycling in particular.
I am also fairly active on a popular Linux forum and even there the regulars, recently became aware of my interest in unicycling.
They do a pretty good job but when it comes down fast and heavy, they are not always cleared. Also I unicycle quite frequently on the “sidewalks”.
I’ll check them out.
Ha… I wouldn’t dare!
It just uses ISIS cranks, right? If so I also have a set of 102mm Venture 2 ISIS cranks. I could move these back to the 26" and put the VCX+ ISIS on your 29" uni for more testing.
So far, so good but I haven’t done more than 30 minutes at a time and I think Ed cycled a little bit further than that, didn’t he? 
Studded tyres
On my 29" x 3,25 tyre I recently used this:
Fastened with this:
Thanks Erlend. I presume this is in follow up to our twitter conversation where I linked to this thread? I was going to ask you were you bought the studs
Ok I ordered 100 studs and the tool to put them in (but not from bikeshop.no because they were out). I used Felleskjøpet.no and they were really expensive. I’m going to try studding a Duro Wildlife Leopard 26x3. 100 probably isn’t nearly enough but I couldn’t bring myself to buy more until I have checked them out and see how feasible this is.
For comparison my Kenda Klondike XT 26x2.35 has 368 studs. If this doesn’t work out, so be it. I have been pretty happy with the Kenda Klondike XT 26x2.35 (and still am) but a wider tyre will be better on snow and the spikes should save me on ice.
I briefly considered studding Nimbus Nightrider 36x2.25 so that I can use the big unicycle but the cost of doing so (using this product, sourced in Norway) would make the final tyre more expensive than what I paid for the entire unicycle.
Ok, I now have a 26x3 Duro “Wildlife Leopard” with 76 studs.
I initially tried to be a bit fancy with a pattern but after a test and checking which parts of the tyre were actually in contact with the ground the majority of the time, I took almost all of them out again and went simple.
Now I just have to wait for it to snow again!
P.S. Thanks everyone and especially Erlend, given I went with your suggestion in the end.
How is Vivaldi better than Firefox …or Chrome (most used browser in the world)
Btw what do you do with your studded tire when there is no snow? Does it make more noise when riding on the road? Does it also give you more traction when you ride off-road, than non-studded tires?
I’ll come back to you on that as I dropped by the forum as I left the office and it would take more than a single sentence.
Right now when the weather is changeable I leave it on. In the warmer months I would switch to a different tyre.
If it is clean tarmac and I ride with it on it sounds like bacon frying in a pan. Not a bad thing but makes me hungry as I cycle along.
You mean with mud on trails and stuff? Nah, the studs only stick out a few mm. They are for ‘gripping’ ice. There would be no benefit to on most surfaces and only serve to add a bit more weight.
Oh and I used it on proper ice this morning and it was good. The only problem was that when I stepped off the unicycle (to cross a road), I nearly slipped as I have no studs on my shoe. Clearly it is safer to unicycle.