Home Made Snow Tires

Written by: David C.

Recently, I took a cue from this guy (http://vimeo.com/9676610) and made my own studded snow mountain bike tires. I had an extra pair of knobbies lying around and wanted to see if I could do it myself before buying a pair. I used:

· 2 lightly used Kenda Nevegal mtb tires

· 160 #8 Philips head sheet metal lath screws, ½” long

· Duct tape

I chose screws with the widest, flattest heads I could find to provide stable bases for the studs and hopefully not puncture my tubes. The ones I used were ½” long, but I could have used 3/8” screws. Using the method in the video, I drove 54 screws through the outer tread blocks on my front tire and sealed up the backside with duct tape. For the rear, I did the same but added two rows of studs closer to the center of the tire. Because these will be in constant contact with the ground, I cut the ends off with a Dremel so that they won’t protrude as much.

It turned out to be fairly easy, if time consuming, and I’m pretty happy with the result. I haven’t used the rear yet, but the front tire works well. It rides normally as you ride straight, but grabs when the front wheel leans, such as when you turn or the wheel starts to slip out. Also, since I already had the tires lying around, it only cost around $5. The only drawback is that it took at least an hour and a half per tire (more for the rear), so you need to be in the mood for an afternoon of DIY. Totally worth it if you have an afternoon to kill.




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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 16th, 2011 at 2:41 am. It is filed under Commute, Web Log and tagged with , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

3 Responses to “Home Made Snow Tires”

  1. Allen Beauchamp says:
    January 16, 2011 at 3:40 am

    Nice job!

    I’ve never made my own studded tires before but Al Brody, one of our advocates down here in the Springs is making a monster set for his CrankIt Mountain Quad. We have an iced over drainage way that is ~45 degrees at least and we’re going to attempt the impossible, riding up it!

    I run Nokian studs on my Fargo but they pale in comparison to the pointy bits no your Nevegals!

    Cheers,

    Allen

    Reply
  2. Bridgestone Dueler says:
    January 29, 2011 at 10:17 am

    These are great, considering that these are home made tires.

    Reply
  3. Big Dummy Daddy says:
    February 10, 2011 at 12:28 am

    I made a set almost exactly like these many years ago. They worked great on the icy and snow packed roads of Laramie, WY. I rode my spiked tires everywhere, including across frozen lakes, until the screw tips wore down and started to rust. I only remember getting one flat from a screw head working its way through the duct tape. A cool thing is that you can occasionally throw sparks on pavement. I just may have to make another pair.

    Reply

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