Over the last few days, the UK has experienced colder than average temperatures.
This is apparently due to a stream of cold air from Scandinavia which is going to persist for a few more days, possibly weeks.
It has already brought snow to several parts of Scotland and Northern England. It is expected to bring snow down South too.
In preparation for the possibility of snow and ice on the road, I decided to invest in a set of studded tyres.
Out of the few available on the UK market, I selected the ones that, due to my experience last winter, were likely to be the most suitable to the road conditions around where I live.
I therefore purchased a pair of Schwalbe Ice Spiker.
They have deep knobs and plenty of studs (just over 300), which are distributed over the entire footprint.
The reason for choosing these over more conventional and less aggressive ones, such as the Schwalbe Marathon Winter, was dictated by three factors: availability, price, road conditions.
Most studded tyres are in stock but in low supply in the UK, so unless you purchase them when they are in stock during the summer, you might be unlucky and need to wait for them to be back in stock, by which time the weather conditions might have already changed.
The Schwalbe Ice Spiker were in stock and I didn't want to risk being without.
The price was also a factor: studded tyres, being a niche market, are expensive! These were £45 each. Not the most expensive, not the cheapest.
The third criteria was road conditions: last year we experienced a long cold spell, and the repeated thaw/freeze cycle, together with compacted snow and ungritted roads, resulted in a great variety of conditions on several routes.
I travel on pavements, cycle tracks, residential roads, and main roads, all of which had a layer of ice with uncompacted and compacted snow on top.
If I had to have just one set of studded tyres, due to price and availability, it had to be the one that could deal with the worst conditions found on unplowed roads.
The tyre had to be able to shed off snow, therefore a mud tyre design. And it had to have studs all over the surface to deal with ice in all conditions.
The Schwalbe Ice Spiker ticked all the boxes.
They come with instructions which recommend a run in period of 25 miles of gentle riding (no hard braking/accelerations) on dry tarmac.
Therefore, last night I fitted them to the spare set of rims, and this morning I set off for my commute to work, which incidentally is exactly 25 miles.
The tyres felt a bit slippery at first, but that was most likely due to the pressure I pumped them at initially: 40 PSI front and 50 PSI rear.
My previous experience riding on snow and ice tought me that lower pressures make riding on slippery surfaces more predictable. So I let some air out of the tyres, down to maybe 30PSI or even less, and the ride became quite enjoyable.
You can tell there are bits of metal between you and the road, especially due to the loud noise! These tyres are very loud.
So far, my conclusion is that, until the weather gets worse, I will probably be better off using regular mud or cross country knobbly tyres on my daily commute until February, just in case I have to ride on fresh powdery snow on my return journey from the office.
Unless that is, it snows overnight at which point I will definitely switch back to the Schwalbe Ice Spiker and will keep them on until the road conditions improve so far that ice is not an issue anymore.
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