Marc Kitteringham
Now that it has been winter for a decent amount of time, I can give my first impressions of Schwalbe’s Winter Marathon 26 x 2.00 tires. I have experimented with studded tires in the past, spending long hours in winter nights screwing drywall screws into a cheap mud tire, cutting my hands on the sharp points of the screws and destroying too many tubes with my cheap DIY solution. This year, since I have the benefit of having access to good studded tires, I decided to bite the bullet and invest in a studded tire.
Yes that was singular.
I am currently only running one studded tire on my winter set up. I have the tire on my rear wheel with a cheap mud tire on the front for added traction. I elected on the rear wheel because I figured that was where I needed the traction most. The year before I ran my DIY stud on the front tire, and this year I immediately noticed the difference. I was able to take off from stop lights easily, and it still let go enough to skid around a bit.
The tire also held up well in the deep snow. I threw it into a low gear and took it into a freshly powdered field many times and the thinner profile and slightly raised tread allowed me to spin quickly enough to move forward at a decent pace.
I enjoy this tire a lot. It is durable, I haven’t had any flats, I haven’t had that sickening feeling where my tire washes out from underneath me as I’m cruising down a busy street. I have knocked out a few of the studs, but I think that was more my own foolishness (read: skids) than the fault of the tire.