7 of 10 customers found this review helpful.
I live in Ontario, Canada and ordered these for my winter riding needs which includes mostly gravel or chip-seal country roads that are snowice packed from Dec through March. In addition to traction issues we have quite a few steep hills here, putting a premium on traction for ascents and descents. I ride throughout the year and average about 100kmweek in winter. Before trying these tires I had successfully used Trigger Pro and Sammy Slick in winter. Both are file tread tires with side knobs. The file tread allows them to clear quickly while the side knobs, when they kick in, provide a chance at staying upright. Suffice it to say that it's a white knuckle ride! FYI, I have never flatted in winter (I use Conti butyl tubes with Stans's compound inside them).
Having read various reviews of spiked tires I thought I would trade up in traction and safety.
For my first ride with these tires I chose a 35km route that included pack snowice and some clear asphalt, basically anything I would encounter in a typical winter ride.
Given the weight of these tires compared with 300-325g for the aforementioned semi-slicks, I was expecting a slower ride. Even so I was surprised by the increase in rolling resistance. At 50psi, these tires were hard to keep rolling on every surface I encountered. Plus, they hey were noisy to the point of being annoying, and after 35km I felt like I had ridden 75km. But even more surprisingly they offered little, if any, upgrade in traction over my usual rubber.
Perhaps tires these aren't meant to go fast and the resistance curve bends sharply up past a certain speed (likely) or perhaps I could lose several watts of resistance by tweaking tire pressure. And perhaps they get better after a break-in period.
I'm wiling to give them another try, but boy, given how noisy they are, this might not happen for a while!
Conclusion some upgrade on snow and ice, although surprisingly little in my experience, vastly increased resistance and noise.
Thank you for your feedback.