12-01-2018, 04:42 PM
(12-01-2018, 04:30 PM)Canard Wrote: I have what is potentially a really dumb question, or maybe this is something totally obvious that people do all the time...
One of my bikes (the one I ride year-round, a Trek Verve 3 that I absolutely adore) has 700c x 35 tires. I have these nice Hard Case Ultimate Bontrager tires on it that are super-smooth on the paved paths, but have knobby edges off to the sides when I'm off road. I love 'em.
Anyway, in the winter, I switch over to some knobbier Bontrager tires, I just did that myself this morning for the first time. It didn't take too long, maybe 20-30 minutes.
Anyway, I got to thinking about how much I'd also like to try out studded/spiked tires, for those days when it's icy or when the knobby tires don't have enough traction - but don't want to not be able to ride when it's clear out. Swapping would be a little more effort than I'd probably want to do on a regular basis... so then I thought, what if I just bought a second set of rims, tires and tubes, and the same cassette that is on my "regular" wheels... and just physically swap the entire wheels depending on the weather? That's like a 1 minute job.
What do you think? Is this crazy? Or do people already do this as "a thing"?
If I were to do this, I suppose there are all sorts of parameters and nomenclature for specifying the correct type of rim (or, I suppose more importantly, the axle arrangement and offset for the rear one, especially, to accommodate the cassette)...?
I don't think it's crazy at all, I'm planning on doing that this winter, building a set of wheels, (from scratch with spokes, hub, and rim, just for fun), and putting the summer tires for my bike on that one.
That being said, I still don't think I'd bother switching wheels in the winter on nicer days, there's still occasional bits of ice in shadow or whatever, I am riding schwalbe winters which are studded but not terribly knobby (they're not perfectly flat in the middle but they're not too aggressive). I'm not sure how you'd find them in deeper snow, I find they're just fine on trails, great on ice, and fine in moderate snow. They are noisy as anything on dry pavement, which is annoying, but I just kinda deal with it in the winter.
Still, if you have QR wheels (which I don't) and don't mind switching, I think it's reasonable to have two sets of wheels, frankly, I'm doing so partially to keep my good wheels out of the messy winter salt bath.
[1] https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ca/e...prod118113