For the past couple of years, one of the ways that I’ve celebrated the coming of spring is by taking off the studded tires on my commuter bike. This has been an usually warm, snow-free winter, and the long range forecast doesn’t show any snow, so I decided to do it today.
My studded tires are Schwalbe Marathon Winters. They are costly and heavy, but I’ve run them for three winters now, and they don’t show any appreciable wear.
Fender clearance is really tight on these. It takes some fiddling so that there is no rubbing on the front fender. Believe me, when you have the combination of studded tires and steel fenders, when you are in the realm of negative fender clearance, you hear it loud and clear.
I switch from the Marathon Winters to regular Schwalbe Marathons (another excellent tire for the city, BTW). Even though the nominal sizes aren’t that different (47-559 vs. 40-559) in reality, there is quite a bit of difference, particularly since the Winters are significantly taller as well as wider.
Notwithstanding the fact that we had a record high temperature yesterday of 19°C, as God is my witness, just as soon as I made the switch and was putting my tools away, it started to snow.
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