Home Made Studded Tires

Icebike.org is a site that caught my attention. It has all kinds of suggestions and how to on winter riding. HERE they talk about how to make your own studded tires.

This is what you need to make your very own studded tire:

One tire. You need a tire with knobs big enough to support the stud. the stud as explained further down, has to be on the

50 (approx.) Robertson head #8 by 1/2″ sheet metal screws (the square head, you’ll thank me for this tip) for mountain bike tires (26inch) or #8 by 3/8 inch for hybrid tires (700c)

Liner for each tire. This can be made by cutting the beads off an old tire, cutting out the valve and slitting along the inside of an inner tube or just buying a Mr. Tuffy tire liner.

Baby powder.

Instructions

Count the knobs and evenly spread out the 25 screws for each side.

Punch holes, from the outside of the tire, into the designated knobs. You can drill the hole, however, drilling tends to tear the fabric and thus weakens the tire. Caution you don’t need a million screws in there! Too many screws just slows you down.

Use Robertson bit in the drill to drive the screws in the tire from the inside.

Put liner inside tire and make sure it covers the screw heads

Put a generous dusting of baby powder between the liner and the tube.

Mount tire on the rim (ouch! watch out for the points!)

Inflate to maximum pressure. Put the wheel on the bike (mind the points). Spin the wheel to make sure that the studs don’t catch on anything.

Comments

You only need to stud the front tire to keep upright; however, if you stud the back tire as well, it’s even better. One caveat is that these tires are only suitable for winter conditions. The difference between one studded front and no studded tires in phenomenal. When the bike is travelling straight the studs shouldn’t be hitting the road too hard; otherwise, they will just wear out too soon. Don’t worry, when the tire slips just a bit the studs will bite in. You rarely notice the slight side to side movement.

You don’t need to stud the middle knobs since you only need the added traction when you are turning. The studs should touch the road enough to allow sufficient braking. The studs in the middle knobs wear out very fast and soon become useless anyway.

Stainless steel screws will last much longer, but also cost about 3 times as much. You can change screws as they wear out, your tire can survive several sets of studs.