Hi all,
I though you might like a review of my new studded winter tire, a
Nokian Mount & Ground W160 26x1.9. The bottom line is that traction
on ice is awesome, performance on dry pavement is pretty good, and the
studs are low profile super hard carbide. I started by mounting on a
patch of clear driveway ice and could immediately tell the tire wasn’t
going to slip. Riding over patches of ice at intersections on the
road is positively casual. This isn’t a tire for deep snow because it
is too thin, so it is nice that the fluffy snow has melted off the
roads. The tire did slip on some compacted snow/slush, but not enough
to throw me. Attempts at riding through thicker patches of crud were
less successful.
Idling - or, more accurately, my attempts at learning to doing so -
went well even though the tire is noisy and weirdly grippy (without
interfering) during quick twisting corrections. I expected some studs
to fall out, but they held tight. I know, I know: learning to idle on
an expensive tire is silly, but I’m happy nonetheless 
The tire is smaller than the Kenda 26x2.125 the uni came with. Even
so, it rides better with much less tendency to steer downhill on
crowned roads and sloped sidewalks. The Nokian was a dream to
install, going on easily by hand. For contrast, the Kenda is a
nightmare requiring strong lever action even for installation,
resulting in damage to the bead! This spring I’m putting on a
Hookworm instead.
The tire was $79 (USD) at webmountainbike.com, which has other Nokians
on sale as well. Now my LBS has this tire for $69. I chose the Mount
& Ground because I use the uni for road riding and didn’t want an
aggressive tread pattern.
I hope some of you found this interesting. I looked for comments on
studded tires before buying this one and couldn’t find any.
Cheers,
Ken