winter tires 22x3

[jessy]

Hi!

I live in Montreal (Canada...) when the winter is cold, roads can be icy, slushy, holey, you name it
I still want to ride my Radwagon and bring the kid to the daycare but I don't think the tires will be sufficient. Has anyone found 22x3 tires that fit on the bike ?

Thank you!

[Banjopete]

Hi there, I'm in edmonton, have ten years of winter bike experience here and am trying to get my brand new to me RW4 up to speed for winter duties this year too. Will be using mine with two kids 6 and 8 for daycare duties as well.

The tire you're looking for apparently is actually an 18" rim diameter despite the silly naming radpower uses for their wheel size. I've ordered a pair or tires to replace the stock ones, and will see how they do unstudded, but likely will look to stud at least the front tire as the winter gets underway. We get pretty awful and long periods of ice and freezing rain in recent years so I've become pretty sure that studs are mandatory for me.

Anyways I've ordered a pair of these
https://fortnine.ca/en/kenda-k262-small-block-tire?utm_id=74584643731&utm_campaign=1768276252&utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid&utm_content=342522037899&gclid=CjwKCAjwmbqoBhAgEiwACIjzEJXVEVGEVeJYQFAjQ9i22BH564E-L_gRfgxN3R7kTpHw9YWzExygTxoCTSkQAvD_BwE#521=7713

18" x 2.75" they'll be here next week for me and I'll have a chance to mount them up and see how they fit. I couldn't find the Shinko Sr241 that I've seen most commonly used as a replacement tire for the RW4. None were available in Canada and I didn't want to incur all the shipping costs from the us to try.  These kenda's have nice big blocks, and look like I'll be able to add studs without any issues.

Would love to hear how you end up, and share any winter riding ideas on these things. I still have my regular/backup winter bike if needed but I'm hopeful the big wagon will do the work. 

[Ddaybc]

For winter riding another thing to check out is a company called Slipknot traction. They make bicycle chains for winter riding. Their web site is "www.slipnottraction.com"

[handlebar]

You should look for the metric markings. The 20 x 3.3 tires on my Radrunner have metric markings saying 84-406.

The second is the bead diameter. The replacement has to match it. The first is the width. I've read that if it's too far off, the tire won't stay on the rim. For my Radrunner, I thought 75-406 would be close enough. The manufacture had mislabeled it. It was 50-406. Within 200 feet, a big bubble on inner tube had worked its way out.

I'd thought my Radrunner would be useful on snow because two touring motorcycles with similar tires had done very well. The Radrunner was terrible. The motorcycle tires pressed on the slippery stuff hard enough for traction, while the bicycle tires, under a third of the weight, floated on top of the lubrication.

Some bicyclists screw studs into tires for winter riding.

[Banjopete]

I'm hoping the heft of the RW4 will be part of it's success in the snow. It could work against it if it just plows on corners but it's pretty close to a conventional bike with the weight distribution over the tires it seems. I have run into issues with tight fitting tires on rims in the past that made mounting tires an absolute nightmare. Whenever I encountered that I swapped to a different tire just so I'd have some confidence in being able to change tubes along my route. I've no idea how easy tube changes en route will be with this as I've not changed tires on it yet. 

[handlebar]

I can almost get the tires on and off my Radrunner rims with fingers alone because the beads fit loosely. That's how I pinched a tube for the first time in my life. I was sure I hadn't pinched it with a tool. After that, I'd inflate a tire to 4 psi or so and make sure the bead was seated evenly all the way around on both sides. The first time I found an uneven bead, I realized how I'd pinched the tube. A Radrunner tube is fatter than the tire, so it can sneak under the loose bead before inflation.

Other than that, the hassle is getting the back wheel off and back on. The chain tensioner was a bigger problem than the motor. Radpower's revised design is easier to get off and on.

My Radrunner wasn't safe on snow until I reduced tire pressure to 10 psi. Pressure that low soaks up motor power and is bad for the tires.

[Antti L]

Hi,

I live in Helsinki and have the RadWagon4. I have been through 3 Finnish winters with it. In Helsinki the temperature tends to fluctuate around freezing throughout the beginning of winter and then stays below freezing in Jan - Feb, so we get lots of slush, ice, and re-frozen semi-melted snow, with lots of bike-corroding salt thrown in for good measure 

I noticed that the stock RadWagon tires are slippery in the cold and they have almost no lateral grip in icy conditions. I've taken several falls when the front tire slipped out from under me. This makes riding in the winter very unpleasant. I don't like having to be "on edge" the whole time.

Last winter I laced up a 24in rim to a new front hub and used a 24in studded winter tire at around 3 bar of pressure. There were no tire clearance issues, and it completely transformed the bike. The grip, even on ice, was much much better and I felt a lot more comfortable and safe riding around in icy and frozen conditions. I just left the rear tire as stock. There is some slippage from time to time, but the back sliding out isn't really a problem.

Getting a new rim for the front can be kind of expensive, but if you are serious about riding around in the winter I would recommend it. I would say forget the snow chains or moped tires and get a studded tire.

[handlebar]

How wide is your tire?

I grew up riding a Raleigh Sport labeled A B Jackson. Jackson manufactured a few 50cc motorcycles as a cover to smuggle Raleighs labeled as boxes of motorcycle parts. Their tires were 1-3/8 x 26, inflated to 4 bar (60 psi).

There was frost in the pavement one November evening when it rained. The result was a layer of wet ice. I was 14. The city streets were deserted when I rode a few blocks to a friend's house. After I dismounted, I slipped and broke my coccyx. Nobody was home. I guess the impassable roads had stranded the family. Stepping carefully, I remounted and rode home without incident.

Riding a good bike on wet ice is dangerous. It can lull the rider into thinking the ice would be safe to walk on.  I guess those tires had a higher loading (more bars against the pavement) than my shoes, which were much wider. If I didn't go too fast, the tires could push through the water film and get some grip on the ice.

[Banjopete]

Hi,

I live in Helsinki and have the RadWagon4. I have been through 3 Finnish winters with it. In Helsinki the temperature tends to fluctuate around freezing throughout the beginning of winter and then stays below freezing in Jan - Feb, so we get lots of slush, ice, and re-frozen semi-melted snow, with lots of bike-corroding salt thrown in for good measure 

Getting a new rim for the front can be kind of expensive, but if you are serious about riding around in the winter I would recommend it. I would say forget the snow chains or moped tires and get a studded tire.

This is another good idea, it's pretty clear radpower wasn't thinking at all of winter riders which makes sense based on numbers alone but it's a shame I can't simply go buy properly studded tires for my RW4. I'm probably in a very similar climate to you pretty much frozen November through to March with fluctuating temps along the way but wet ice, sheer ice, snow, and certainly deep cold for days or weeks. I would not expect anything but trouble from the stock tires as they're essentially slicks very brave of you to ride them at all. I'm going to try the knobbies first, and likely stud the front for exactly the reasons you've pointed out. I can deal with a slippy back but washing the front is bad news. I'm hopeful the big footprint of the low psi tire will help a lot compared to my 29'er studded ones I'm accustomed to for winter.

Thanks for sharing the real world experience.

[Banjopete]

Fun related note my tires have arrived. Big and knobby, seem really stout. Hopefully they go on okay.

As mentioned above these are kenda k262 small blocks, 18 x 2.75

[Antti L]

Fun related note my tires have arrived. Big and knobby, seem really stout. Hopefully they go on okay.

As mentioned above these are kenda k262 small blocks, 18 x 2.75

It would be nice to get an update at the end of the winter on how these work in icy conditions.

Regards,
Antti

[Banjopete]

Fun related note my tires have arrived. Big and knobby, seem really stout. Hopefully they go on okay.

As mentioned above these are kenda k262 small blocks, 18 x 2.75

It would be nice to get an update at the end of the winter on how these work in icy conditions.

Regards,
Antti

Will do.

[John Rose]

Are winter tires for bicycles supposed to have softer rubber, as with automobile winter tires?
Or does it really matter?

[Antti L]

Are winter tires for bicycles supposed to have softer rubber, as with automobile winter tires?
Or does it really matter?

I think that most winter tires for bikes rely on studs for added traction on ice, and they tend to be knobby for grip in the snow. I have also tried Continentals Top Contact Winter tire which is a studless winter tire. It relies on the compound and tread design for grip in the snow, kind of like a studless Nordic winter tire for a car. They work surprisingly well in snowy and slippery conditions, but don't have enough grip on ice, so I switched back to studded tires for the winter. I think that these studless winter tires are a good idea for places that get some snow from time to time. Snow itself is not slippery and regular bike tires do just fine on hard packed snow. The problem is ice and the freezing and thawing conditions that we have in Helsinki for example. Snow melts then freezes again and you end up with large sheets of ice covering a bike path. In these conditions it is very easy for the front wheel to slip out for underneath you. A good studded tire is really the only thing that helps. The downside with studded tires however is the increased rolling resistance, which is quite noticeable. This is why I usually run just one studded tire on the front and a non studded on the back. The front is where you need the grip in order to avoid falls.

[handlebar]

My parents bought a Saab 96 in 1967 and another in 1968. The radial tires on the 68 held on ice better than the bias-ply tires on the 67.

I think it was for the same reason that radials had less rolling resistance and longer tread life. When the bias-ply tires pressed down on ice, the stiff sidewalls would make the tread squirm, turning static friction into kinetic friction, which is less. The more pliant sidewalls of the radials meant less squirming against the ice.

Depending on the tire construction, I think lower pressure could also reduce squirm. I don't know what tire you have, but Schwalbe has three 24-inch cargo-bike tires. They recommend 2 to 4 bars for the 2.6 inch,  2 to 4.5 for the 2.35 inch, and 2.5 to 4.5 for the 2.15 inch. Whatever pressures are recommended for your tire, the minimum might provide the best traction on ice.

At 4 bar, my English bike was better on ice than my shoes. At 2 bar, my two BMW motorcycles were much better on ice than the bicycle. The composition of the rubber was probably another factor.