Studded tyre Nokian W160 - yeehaw! by Ken Cline

Unicycles and Equipment
1

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 :slight_smile:

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.

P.S. The tire really proved itself last night. I rode 4 miles along with the local running club on a “Christmas Lights” run. There was lots of ice on the road but I couldn’t feel any loss of traction. I took it easy on sharp turns, though, partly because the new tire feels different in turns and partly because I didn’t want to land on ice if I lost my balance and had an UPD. Snow proved more difficult than ice, and there were a couple of times I fell off trying to ride through ridges of hardened slush.

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Reposted by Klaas Bil because Ken is no forum member. Post any response in rec.sport.unicycling if you want Ken to see it.

2

I saw all the tires at the nokian tires website and they have multiple studded tires all of which look excellent. I wanna buy one but havent yet had the need.

3

I haven’t tried these myself, but bikers usually use the Hakka WXC300 or Extreme 296. Both have some pros and cons but usually people like the WXC more. Not really cheap tires but the studs are high quality and both tires give a lot of grip, even on glare ice.

4

We’ve had a run of icy conditions on the trails lately, and my 26x3 Duro hasn’t had the traction I wanted, so I went nuts and bought the studded Nokian Mount and Ground 26x1.9 yesterday. I am amused the the price was the same in 2015 as the original poster claimed in 2003. The tire looks tiny compared to the Duro, so I was concerned about riding off-road with it.
So, I went for a two mile ride on the local single track last night. Even in the icy parking lot, I could tell a dramatic improvement in traction and stability. The trails had a dreadful icy base with about an inch of new snow on top. I rode in the tracks of 3 or 4 previous riders with fat bikes. Traction was impressive. There were many times when my brain was on my way to a dismount, but the unicycle wasn’t interested in falling over. I recovered and kept moving. Awesome. The skinny tire doesn’t really like snow deeper than about 3 inches, but for everything else, it was great. There were many places on the trail where riding was MUCH easier than walking.
If you’re stuck with icy trails and roads (or skating rinks), I’d recommend this tire, even if it’s skinnier than you’re used to. Happy winter riding!

5

That sounds like a lot of fun, and it’s great that you were able to refer to a thread on it that was over a decade old. Snow is hit or miss here, none so far this winter but I got some really fun rides last year under various conditions, never the same any two days. It made me think of the old saw about Eskimos having 40 words for snow or however that goes. Cool that you’re getting out there and the Nokian’s working out for you.

6

it never occurred to me that i could throw a studded tire on! i will be searching one out for next spring as it can get dicey here early spring.