Studding Tires.... Tips and Tricks?

LungButter
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LungButter
Edited Date/Time 11/5/2022 2:17pm
Talk to me my snowbound brethren... what do I need to know?

I've got minimal experience with studded tires but I want to get a setup this year and rip some snow motos.

What are the best ones to use? Do you have to run Mousses?

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sandman768
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sandman768 11/3/2022 12:15pm
11/3/2022 12:15pm
Ice only buy Fredettes… trails/ Moto buy Trellborgs… I used to make studded winter riding tires, I would use intermediate tires front & rear, the rear I would make a liner out of an old road bike tire, get long enough screws to bite into the liner… fronts I just used 1 screw per knobby & would replace as needed… best to have these tires mounted on a spare set of wheels, changing the rear with a liner is brutal😂
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Hoseclamp
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Hoseclamp 11/3/2022 12:20pm
11/3/2022 12:20pm
We do ice, not snow. Not sure if its exactly the same type of setup (I doubt it), but we use Kold Kutters and use and old tube inside the tire as a liner. This works super great and you get much better traction on the ice than you can in the dirt. Once you lear to trust them, you can REALLY throw that thing into the corners! If youll be doing any ice at all these are what I reccomended.
LungButter
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LungButter 11/3/2022 12:24pm
11/3/2022 12:24pm
Shoulda put in the first post. Planning to do off road riding, probably not much Ice.

Mitas (did they buy Trelleborg?) sells some studded tires that are $450....f#$% me.

R VanKamp77
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R VanKamp77 11/3/2022 12:30pm
11/3/2022 12:30pm
Maybe the dumbest post on here today but theoretically... what would be the outcome if you ran studs on dirt for traction in hard pack?

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sandman768
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sandman768 11/3/2022 12:31pm
11/3/2022 12:31pm
LungButter wrote:
Shoulda put in the first post. Planning to do off road riding, probably not much Ice. Mitas (did they buy Trelleborg?) sells some studded tires that...
Shoulda put in the first post. Planning to do off road riding, probably not much Ice.

Mitas (did they buy Trelleborg?) sells some studded tires that are $450....f#$% me.

Buy them, you won’t regret it… just don’t use them on bare rocks, it kills them….maybe look for a lightly used set…
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LungButter
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LungButter 11/3/2022 12:36pm
11/3/2022 12:36pm
R VanKamp77 wrote:
Maybe the dumbest post on here today but theoretically... what would be the outcome if you ran studs on dirt for traction in hard pack?
Can't speak to hard pack but I've seen lots of guys run them in muddy/root filled off road races and they are a huge advantage.

Most clubs ban them though, huge advantage and they tear up the trails really bad when the dirt is soft.
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Robbirob25
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Robbirob25 11/3/2022 12:42pm
11/3/2022 12:42pm
You need to buy the "Ice Cutters" if you're going to do it yourself... Cut up an old tire and place inside the tire to be studded. You're going to cut off the side walls of an old street bike tire, and screw through the knobbies and into the new liner you've made. I recommend a bib mousse, but if you are going to use a tube? You'll need the same diameter, but smaller in volume. If you have the means? Buy a Fredette. If not, this will get you started. Just running a short screw into the knobbies will not give you the traction you want. The tire needs to be stiff to get it to dig into the ice. If you are going to ride in just snow? Then the shorter length screws are fine. We built a bunch of these when i owned the Honda Dealership. Nowadays i am certain there plenty of You Tube videos as well.
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Log Hopper 11/3/2022 12:50pm
11/3/2022 12:50pm
We used to buy Woody's studs and screw them into the end of the year worn out tire trying not to screw all the way through the tire. Worked fine for messing around on frozen trails. They were basically hex head sheet metal screws.

I was going to attach a picture but the Woody's advertised on Dennis Kirk are different from the ones I used. Try the sheet metal screws, it'll work.
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swordfish
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swordfish 11/3/2022 2:26pm
11/3/2022 2:26pm
sandman768 wrote:
Ice only buy Fredettes… trails/ Moto buy Trellborgs… I used to make studded winter riding tires, I would use intermediate tires front & rear, the rear...
Ice only buy Fredettes… trails/ Moto buy Trellborgs… I used to make studded winter riding tires, I would use intermediate tires front & rear, the rear I would make a liner out of an old road bike tire, get long enough screws to bite into the liner… fronts I just used 1 screw per knobby & would replace as needed… best to have these tires mounted on a spare set of wheels, changing the rear with a liner is brutal😂
You mean MF1’s? 😎
swordfish
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swordfish 11/3/2022 2:27pm
11/3/2022 2:27pm
R VanKamp77 wrote:
Maybe the dumbest post on here today but theoretically... what would be the outcome if you ran studs on dirt for traction in hard pack?
You can run in the shoulder season when the snow is gone but the ground is frozen.
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swordfish
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swordfish 11/3/2022 2:36pm
11/3/2022 2:36pm Edited Date/Time 11/3/2022 2:44pm
LungButter wrote:
Shoulda put in the first post. Planning to do off road riding, probably not much Ice. Mitas (did they buy Trelleborg?) sells some studded tires that...
Shoulda put in the first post. Planning to do off road riding, probably not much Ice.

Mitas (did they buy Trelleborg?) sells some studded tires that are $450....f#$% me.

Here’s the deal because most of the advice you are getting sucks.
You don’t need a liner. HD Tubes are fine. Liners are for ice racing tires using screws.
Real pros like my local boys use a stud gun, a jig and a metal collar. Many opinions on best tires to run. It’s a personal choice. Lots of guys like M5B rears and Kenda fronts. I’ve built all kinds using different brands. My current set are Maxxis.
Use a tungsten carbide stud. Height depends on type of snow you get. More snow belt location, taller stud. You use too short of a stud on front tire it will float and you will spend the whole day hating life and hitting the ground. Ideally studs need hard pack, harder and more packed the better. Kevin’s Cycles make great tires. You can also buy a kit with the collar and drill bit.
Grip studs work pretty good but are expensive and come out.
Don’t use glue in the drilled holes, it gums up the stud gun. Some pro set ups do but they have the equipment to do it right.
See below for the best source of studs in the US and Canada.
https://brunowessel.com/tire-studs/motocross-studs/?amp
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swordfish
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swordfish 11/3/2022 2:36pm
11/3/2022 2:36pm
Run 15ish PSI in the tires.
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swordfish
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swordfish 11/3/2022 2:50pm
11/3/2022 2:50pm
Also, if you don’t have any hard packed trail, just loose snow don’t waste your time, studded tires are useless. Buy a track kit.
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Ryno23
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Ryno23 11/3/2022 5:46pm
11/3/2022 5:46pm
Grip Studs on a fresh IRC M5B with 12psi Mich UHD tube. Front tire use a tire of your choice with decent sized blocks. They can last 2-3 years easily if you don't spin them on bare rocks. Up here in Montana spike biking is all we get for a while unless you travel to like Mesquite or go towards Boise desert area. And for whoever said "get a track kit" I am sorry, but snow biking is not anything like dirt biking. It just isn't even close.
Sargebro387
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Sargebro387 11/3/2022 7:51pm
11/3/2022 7:51pm Edited Date/Time 11/4/2022 7:03am
I studded up my Starcross 5s for the hangover scramble that Washougal does on new years. This is how I did it.

I used 1/4" x 1 1/4" concrete screws off amazon. I bought the same size from home depot for my YZ and they're too long, way more expensive, have a small hex flathead that will pull through the tire. Make sure you get the Phillips head and buy 2 packs of 100.
Buy the same amount of washers and 1/4" nuts.

Pre-drill through the knobs, then run the screw out from the inside of the tire with a washer under the Phillips head. Then you need an electric impact to cross thread the nut onto the screw. This makes it impossible to lose a screw. I didn't lose any during the race. I had friends that used the ice screws that go into the top of the knob and they lost a lot of them. You will need a spare tube to slice up to use as a liner otherwise you will pinch a tube in no time.

Ideally you want to run less screws on the front tire otherwise it can cause steering issues from what I've read.
I ran them in both ice/snow and on my greasy clay trail loop at home, and the traction is like velcro.








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swordfish
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swordfish 11/4/2022 3:29am
11/4/2022 3:29am
Ryno23 wrote:
Grip Studs on a fresh IRC M5B with 12psi Mich UHD tube. Front tire use a tire of your choice with decent sized blocks. They can...
Grip Studs on a fresh IRC M5B with 12psi Mich UHD tube. Front tire use a tire of your choice with decent sized blocks. They can last 2-3 years easily if you don't spin them on bare rocks. Up here in Montana spike biking is all we get for a while unless you travel to like Mesquite or go towards Boise desert area. And for whoever said "get a track kit" I am sorry, but snow biking is not anything like dirt biking. It just isn't even close.
Studs don’t work very well in 2 feet of powder.
Darrin Willis
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Darrin Willis 11/4/2022 6:23am
11/4/2022 6:23am
Mitas (formerly trelleborg) are the best way to go . I live in Alberta. We use studded tires 5 months a year. There are vet offroaders here that ride mire in the winter then they do in the summer. We now pay about 600$ per tire. The Calgary national track opens for studded riding as long as its not colder then minus 10 Celsius. 15 Fahrenheit? Just a guess. I have a couple hundred hrs of studded riding under my belt. You can get 50 hrs on a rear mitas or more if u stay off the rocks. 6" of snow is like riding in beach sand . Hard frozen ground with minimal snow cover is surprisingly fun. Excellent traction.
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Lastander
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Lastander 11/4/2022 9:02am
11/4/2022 9:02am


I bought 600 of these fuckers last winter and rode them once on the ice, it worked but i wouldnt recommend it
racerx217
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racerx217 11/4/2022 3:07pm
11/4/2022 3:07pm
Grip studs all the way,

very long lasting they will outlive the tires, pull them out and use them in the next set.
agn5008
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agn5008 11/4/2022 3:15pm
11/4/2022 3:15pm
I bought a new set of Mitas (Trellborgs) last year. That’s what I’ve been running for 20+ years. If you just ride on ice and snow and learn to not put the hammer down (unless you’re doing a race of course) then they will last a really long time. They are pricey but by the time you buy new tires plus all the screws to make your own you’ll be fairly close to what the Mitas costs anyways.
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Nate_Ferderer 11/4/2022 10:54pm
11/4/2022 10:54pm Edited Date/Time 11/5/2022 2:17pm
I used grip studs for a couple winters, 100 of the 1740’s in the front and 200 1800Rs in the rear. I went through a couple sets of tires (always started with used), once the lugs started to tear off I would zip them out and install into another tire, takes about an hour a tire each. Traction was OK. I bought a set of Mitas $$$ thinking they’d be the same as Trelleborg, I wanted more traction and reliability (more studs = more traction and more dispersed load). I bought them from one of the reputable winter tire builders in the US. One ride and the side lug studs started to pull out, and this was deep snow (12”+) conditions, pro level enduro single track riding. They sent me another thinking it was defective, but the same thing happened with the second tire.. I only got a few rides out of them and many studs had fully pulled out.

The traction was great while they lasted but the reliability was worse than grip studs and NOTHING like the old Trelleborgs. To my understanding, the couple shops that make these tires buy the (unstuded) Mitas, then drill, glue, and install the mushroom shaped (base) studs. I believed the OG Trelle’s were molded into the lugs at the factory, and the only way to lose a stud was to rip a lug off.

I switched back to a grip stud style (auger base) stud and run one in each front lug, one in every back lug, and double up on center lugs if there is enough meat. A typical tire takes about 300 fronts and 225 rears. I like using hard pack tires because there are more lugs and generally softer durometer rubber which is less prone to tearing.
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