Ti Designs
12-31-2010, 11:59 AM
With a foot of snow last weekend, above freezing days and below freezing nights, it was clearly time to switch to the studded tires. My winter tire for this season is the Nokian A10. I've put two base mileage rides in on them so far, I've encountered snow, ice, slush, road salt and turkeys - really. The A10 is not light, not too expensive, not quiet, but it does what is should do as a snow/ice bike, but there's a catch. It's a heavy tire, and that noise tells me it doesn't roll all that well - that's not the catch. The catch is that it really is a tractor tire. Ever watch a tractor drive down the road? They bounce on their huge tires and there's no way to damp that motion, so it starts looking like mechanical bull riding until the driver lifts off the throttle. The same thing happens with A10's, 'cept the bounce is induced by the pedal stroke. There's this method I have of showing my riders how smooth or not smooth they really are by putting their bike on the trainer without any resistance - the roller doesn't even touch the tire. The trick is to pedal so smoothly that it doesn't thunk as the pedals speed up and slow down. It takes a lot of practice, but it can be done. If you can do it, you can smoothly bring A10's up to speed on a fixed gear. I spent a lot of time this morning trying to be dead smooth...
Heavy (studded) tires throw a new twist in training, yet it's something I've seen before. In weight training there's the dreaded weight increase. That's where you've been at a certain weight for a while and finishing the set isn't in question. The weight increase changes that and you should feel the fatigue for a while after the workout. Heavy tires are the same thing applied to base mileage. I really tried to keep it in zone 3, and I cut the extra loop out of the ride, but my legs are still that much more tired than they had been last week when I had my normal tires.
Heavy (studded) tires throw a new twist in training, yet it's something I've seen before. In weight training there's the dreaded weight increase. That's where you've been at a certain weight for a while and finishing the set isn't in question. The weight increase changes that and you should feel the fatigue for a while after the workout. Heavy tires are the same thing applied to base mileage. I really tried to keep it in zone 3, and I cut the extra loop out of the ride, but my legs are still that much more tired than they had been last week when I had my normal tires.