Search no more ladies!I had an appointment and had to run errands after work, so I drove to school today in my car. It was the first time I did so since school started back up in September. I feel pretty good about that. I'm staying fit, saving money and helping the environment.
Gwad, driving was awful. I forgot how terribly horrible sitting and driving in traffic was. I would rather stick forks in my eyes. I think it was an impetus for me to start work on my winter commuting tires.
Ever since switching over to 29'ers, and the best damn bike company in the world, I don't have a wide selection of 26" tires anymore. And being thrifty (*cough* cheap*cough*), I chose an old set of WTB Velociraptors to begin work on. The only problem was the wire bead had let loose. I didn't want to go through all the work of putting in studs and then have the bead tear away when I went to mount them.
Gwad, driving was awful. I forgot how terribly horrible sitting and driving in traffic was. I would rather stick forks in my eyes. I think it was an impetus for me to start work on my winter commuting tires.
Ever since switching over to 29'ers, and the best damn bike company in the world, I don't have a wide selection of 26" tires anymore. And being thrifty (*cough* cheap*cough*), I chose an old set of WTB Velociraptors to begin work on. The only problem was the wire bead had let loose. I didn't want to go through all the work of putting in studs and then have the bead tear away when I went to mount them.
exposed wire bead
some dental floss (mmmm, minty) and some handy stitching -nylon is strong and the waxy coating made it go through the rubber side walls easily
after I fixed the bead, I drilled small pilot holes through the knobs that I wanted to sink the studs into
self-tapping metal screws (6 x 3/8), screwed into the knobs from the inside out - will be eventually covered over by two layers of duct tape (and a heavy duty tube will ensure no flats)
hard to see the pattern - they're just for commuting, so I don't need as many studs as if I was riding on icy trailsWill post some more photos when I'm complete.
5 comments:
Craig (AKA Stud), I never thought of installing screws from the inside out. That's a great idea. I had been searching for sheet metal screws with a hex head and short enough to not go all the way through (like I've done on dirt-bike tires).
Have you done this before? Looking forward to seeing the rest of the photos.
And yeah, cars do suck!
Cheers.
Hey Jerome,
I actually wanted to use the hex head screws and go from the outside in. Problem was I couldn't find small enough screws and the knobs on the tires weren't high enough. I've seen it done the way I've done it and it works well. It seems to me it would be more difficult to tear out a stud as well. More to come.
Cheers!
Hey Stud!!!
or is that poser stud? dude, you are supposed to be on your bike @ Cx! suffering like us, being humbled, and crashing and looking like you have never ridden a MTB, EVER. good to see you there man. looks like Kettlebell will wip your booty back into top form!
W
Those are really cool. I am thinking about doing the same kind of thing for ice biking this year. I was thinking about doing it tubeless and letting the slime seal things up.
Have you had any problems with your tires loosing air with this setup?
HI Rob,
haven't used them yet (no snow on the roads), but I am not anticipating any issue since I will be running them with tubes.
Cheers,
C.
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