UKC

Out on mountain bike Saturday pm on country roads in shade and on sharp bend bike just went from under me and smacked my knee on the road. Wasn't breaking or pedalling and had been taking it easy with no signs of slipping. Luckily not clipped in and not on my carbon road bike. Tyres are knobbly WTB 2.24" pumped quite hard. Any suggestions for winter tyres for use on icy roads. I'm mainly cycling country lanes and odd bridleway so more narrow tyres would be OK. Thanks, Mike

In reply to Mikek:

Depends how icy I suppose. Any rubber in contact with the ice itself with have basically no grip, so the on;y thing I can think is increase contact area to increase the odds that some part of the tyre is not on the ice.

Cycling and ice don't really go together. An ice/pothole combo has had me unconscious in the middle of the road once.

In reply to Mikek:

Get studded tyres, e.g. Schwalbe Marathon Winter tyre. I've had my studded tyres on for the past 2 weeks or so, and they have been invaluable - last Thursday & Friday mornings in particular. The only problem with them is that you need to be careful that you don't get too complacent using them!

In reply to Mikek:

Studded tyres would help. However, I imagine that unless you were riding on roads covered with snow/ice they would probably be uncomfortable to ride on. Waiting until it thaws before setting out is probably the best answer. Take extreme care on any area of the road that is in shadow. Basically if you hit a patch of ice on a bike you are very likely to go flying.

On bridleways knobbly tyres do help a bit, but if you hit a patch of water ice they won't make any difference.

In reply to Mikek:

Okay, I'm going to stick my neck out here... are you sure there was actually ice on the road? Knobbly tyres are generally appalling when it comes to cornering grip on tarmac, particularly if it's wet. There are two reasons for this: firstly they are designed to ride up onto the knobbles to bite into the dirt as you corner. If there is nothing to bite then all this does is reduce the contact area and make the level of contact with the road unpredictable. Secondly, unless you ride top-end MTB tyres, the rubber compound will not have been designed to grip smooth wet surfaces. In general, MTB tyres grip by biting, so you can get away with using rubber which does not have any 'grip' at all, when you put it on a wet road this lack of grip becomes immediately and painfully apparent.

If you are riding largely on-road and if it's not icy, or if there's only very patchy ice and you still want to ride, you'd probably be better off using slick road tyres of a decent compound such as conti black-chill. If it's actually icy, studs could help but I'm not sure these would be great between the ice patches.

In reply to Oujmik:

Saturday morning - the back roads were very very icy (black & invisible in some areas) in the Peak. The OP wouldn't have stood a chance if he hit some at speed whilst cornering. (yes I know what ice is).

Off road was awesome fun.

In reply to comments:
Thanks for all the really helpful replies. Yes, I'm sure there was ice and had trouble standing afterwards, but there was enough road to gash my knee through my 'tights'!
So I'm thinking I should change my knobbly tyres for a smoother tyre such as Conti Top CONTACT Winter II ( http://www.conti-online.com/www/bicycle_de_en/themes/city/topContactWinter_... ) and use this for the riding I'm doing over the winter. For any NY Moors/Dales riding I'll change to knobbly, although I'll be on my road bike as soon as it warms up a bit.
Would anyone care to confirm that the Conti tyre in 26 x 2.2 will fit my rims holding the 26 x 2.24 - bike's a Marin Wolf Ridge and not sure if any USA compatible issues?
Thanks again, Mike

In reply to Mikek:
Welcome to cycling in winter, there is no tyre in his world (apart from studded) made of any compound that will give full grip on ice, you may have a very small marginal gain with some very sticky ones but i would suspect you will still end up on your ass.

If you really do want to swap then those tyres will fit the wheel, its the 26 bit that's important.

The 2.2 and 2.4 is the width, most MTB rims will take up to 2.5 without issues, whether they will clear your frame is another matter....

In reply to Mikek:

If you can, get a look at the tyres pumped up... although 2.2" is supposed to be fairly standard, tyre manufactures vary massively in how they measure this. some continental tyres (they vary from model to model) are bang-on width wise, others seem to come up a lot bigger.

To be honest though, with what is basically a road going slick, I doubt you will want much more than the 1.9" width (my road MTB tyres are 1.5")

In reply to Dark-Cloud:
Thanks for reply - yes, I'm thinking I should only go out when there's no ice (but I thought that last Saturday!)

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Thanks, I'm looking at more narrow tyre if possible and I see there is a 26 x 1.9 which looks better. On previous MTB bike, I used a 1.9 width for road use, but that was when there were no icy roads!

In reply to Dark-Cloud:

If you are going to a high volume tyre (2.4 etc), then these are probably better on wider rims so the active profile is a bit less round (more contact area) - and less chance of rolling off.

In reply to Mikek:

Go as thin as you can if you are just using it on the road, my commuter is an MTB with 1.75's on it.

In reply to ChrisJD:

I came off my bike in High Storrs last Friday. Completely invisible black ice. Fortunately going up a steep hill and not down. Very localised but so slick I couldn't stand up. For some weird reason they hadn't gritted which is unusual for that altitude in Sheffield.