Dear Neil, Define "winter" in your neck of the woods.
For my winter riding on the Front Range of Colorado, that's -10degF (once or twice a winter) and teens to mid 30's degF (very common) with a few days of well above freezing to help consolidate the snow into glare ice--or melt it off entirely. Little or no rain--a day or two of snow, then a week or so of dry sunny days. Rock n' Roads seem to do well in fresh snow and after a few days have gone by, and the roads are mostly knocked clear. In the interim, Nokians or Schwalbe Marathon Winter (carbide stud edition) or the 45nrth studded snows get the nod. Once the snow has melted off, any tire is fine for recreational use (the county roads are pretty open and don't ordinarily hold ice, unlike the suburban side streets). The Nokians are horrible slugs on pavement, overkill until you desperately need them. The Rock n' Roads hum a bit on pavement, do a partial fun-ectomy on any bike relative to a Hetre or nicer road tire, and are exceptionally good (due in part to a soft rubber compound) when it is cold and sloppy. They connect. They interact with the underlying materials. In snow, they're tractor tires for your bike. I don't love riding long-distance on them. I keep two wheelsets for each of my bikes. For the Allroad, in the winter, one holds the Rock-n-roads, and the other my Nokian carbide studs. I also have two wheesets for my 700C randonneur, and those have a set of 32-622 Paselas, and a set of michelin muds. If it is icy for any period of time, I'll switch the front to a 45Nrth studded snow. Finally, my "racing" bike has either Grifo-pattern 32mm cyclocross tubulars or Vittoria CG 27 clinchers. I'll swap wheelsets to suit conditions and my whim, but my 650B Allroad gets most of the practical mileage through the winter. In the summer (starting in April, as winter tires wear out, and switching back sometime in late October), all three wear superlight-casing herringbone-tread tires--42 or 48-584, 30-622, and 29mm tubulars, respectively. When I lived in Louisiana, and it froze once every several years (it froze twice in five years, and the only sustained cold snap closed the local Junior High for a month to be completely re-plumbed), my Clement Criteriums were fine for sporting use year-round, and any 27X1 1/4" tire with fenders (paselas again--or its metric equivalent, a 32-622 tire) was plenty with fenders for practical applications. Best Regards, Will William M. deRosset Fort Collins, CO On Wednesday, January 27, 2016 at 3:07:45 PM UTC-7, Neil wrote: > > OK, I love my Barlow Pass 38s for all manner of off-pave riding in the dry > months. But now El Nino is mucking up my game! > > It's still fun out there, but I'd like to have a tad more traction in the > dirt. But I hate buzzing tires on pavement. What mixed terrain tires do > folks like? Tempted to try Rock n Roads, but want to look at options before > I drop $$ on expensive shoes for my bike. > > 700c, 35+. > > Cheers, > > Neil > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
