Studded Tires: 7/9/00

By Mike King

This is a pretty dangerous studded tire. The studs will stab you, cut you and make you bleed if you fall on them. So BE CAREFUL! It will give you awesome traction though on ice and through the muddy terrain.

I made my studded tire with 200 Stainless steel screws and about an hour of work. Start with a somewhat round knobby tire and pick the best knobbies to put the screws through from the inside. Make sure you have lots of clearance in your frame for both the screws and mud buildup. I used 3/4" #6 round head stainless steel screws. I first drilled all the holes through from the outside into each knob where I wanted a stud. Use a small drill bit, it is mainly to just mark the points for the screws on the inside of the tire. Then I put all the screws in from the inside sticking out. If you have the room in your frame, and don't mind the danger of the studs, this tire rocks both for mud and ice riding in the winter.

Make sure the studs stick out on an angle from the sides and not straight down, you don't want to be riding directly on the studs because it will wear them out fast and they will be forced upward which will wreck your tire knobbies eventually and possibly pop your tire. When angled, they should be contacting the ground a bit when you sit on the uni. (Mine are at about 35 degrees without my weight on the tire)

I have ridden my Miyata with this studded tire along some amazingly steep and muddy terrain. It only slipped in VERY THICK mud but otherwise had excellent grip. I rode along sideways on a 45 degree hillside covered in mud successfully with no slipping. There was no way you could walk on it and it surprised me a lot how much traction it had. You might want to try it out.

BTW: It never slips on ice in the winter either. If you go real fast, it actually chips the ice out a bit. And on pavement, your MUni just sounds so much cooler with all those studs scratching the pavement.