Looking for a pair of studded tires for a gravel bike, something around 45mm, I guess none of them will be fast, but something reasonable fast and reliable to be used exclusively for training (no commuting), any ideas?
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I have this in 38mm
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Potentially useful info here, although theyâve stopped selling studded tires themselves:
Gravdal is great option. Also the Schwalbe Marathon Winter is a classic. It is perfect for commuting on plowed roads or for protection against black ice. I have a set of these for my winter commuter bike which is a Bike Friday with 20â (406) wheels. They work great. I put them on in late November/early December and keep them on usually until early March. Keep in mind that studded tires on your gravel bike will not help in deep, soft now. For that you are better off with a fat bike.
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I equip all the winter commuting bikes with Schwalbe Marathon Winter Plus tires. I have used them for ~9 seasons. I previously used Nokians which worked well too. The stud retention has been excellent. The grip on ice is amazing. The Schwalbes have been very reliable.
They are very slow though.
You may want to try something else if youâre looking for something sportier.
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Yeah I hear 45nrths are on the faster side (I still run old Nokian-made Contis and they are okay but slow). Only running studs in front is one way to optimize rolling resistance among other things and also easy to switch back and forth if you have a separate wheel for the studs. The front wheel slipping can bring you down quickly but on the other hand I do find that the rear wheel slipping (not common at all in my riding conditions but yours may of course be different) is mainly a useful sign to take things more carefully. I would say rear studs are mostly useful for riding on sea/lake ice or similar surfaces.
The CST Studmuffin is also an option but is only 40mm. I found they roll similarly to the 45Nrth tires and a lot of times are less expensive than other options.
Another option to improve rolling speed is to remove some of the studs (like every other one) as well as using different stud designs. There are stud tools available (normally marketed towards fat bikers) as well a variety of different stud designs available. Some studs are lower profile and donât provide the bite that a normal or XL stud does but reduce the rolling friction a fair bit but still give you control on ice. For example, I run low profile studs on my rear tire and normal on the front.
Adding and removing studs is kinda tedious and best done on a mounted and inflated tire. It also helps when installing them if you wet them because it lubes them up a bit.
So slow. But indestructible. Those are the only tires I have ever ridden that consistently made my knees hurt after the first couple of rides post-installation, presumably from the extra torque required to get them moving. 
And the tire bead jack was not optional. One could argue these are fantastic training tires, in the sense you will feel superhuman after swapping them out. (This is not a complaint â these are a fantastic product that do exactly what theyâre designed to do, and well).
MN commuter guy checking in.
Iâve run the Gravdahls and they are absolute monster truck tires. Great traction but slow AF. At this point I run Continental Top Contact Winter tires and they do the job pretty close as well on everything but glare ice.
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Thanks for all the info! Iâll go with the Schwalbes, due to the availability at my LBS, the 45nrth tire seems quite uncommon here in Sweden.
If youâre commuting, at least here in MN, if the weather is bad enough that the gravdahls are required then you should really just wait for the plow to come through and clean up the street. If youâre trying to ride on roads/trails that arenât really maintained you get good grip with the gravdahls but rapidly get into âfat bike neededâ territory given you have no âfloatâ.
That said, on my ebikes I do run studs all winter (Schwalbe marathon winter plus) but thatâs mostly because a little extra rolling resistance doesnât bother the ebike so much 
Make sure that youâre riding primarily on snow, ice, or dirt with the studded tires on. From my experience (45Norths, from about 10 years ago), the metal studs get quite slippery on bare tarmacâŠ
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After years running Marathon Winters on my daily commuter, I switched to Conti Top Contact Winters as well. 95% of the time they are the better in Ottawa winters. The other 5% of the time, studs would be nice, but you can get by with dropping the pressure to CX levels and being a bit more careful.
I got my Gravdal from XXL.se but just checked now and they no longer have them.
I have Marathons if Iâm mostly on icy tarmac, and the Gravdals if I expect a lot of icy gravel or if the ice is heavily tracked after a thaw-freeze.
I ride probably 3-4000km a year on spikes and have maybe 6 seasons on them with just a few spikes replaced so theyâre a good investment even if expensive to begin with.
One thing to bear in mind is that even the Marathons feel shit. Massive drag, heavy, noisy. Prepare for the mental effort of being ok with drudgery. When they come off in spring youâre feel awesome so look forward to that.
I am interested about the studsâ different profiles, I wasnât knowing and definitively something to try, thanks for sharing.
On my side, I am either using Continental Spike Winter 240 studs 42mm, Schwalbe Ice Spiker Pro 2.25" or 45NRTH Wrathchild in 2.6â. The faster are the Schwalbe, by far, and the less noisy the Contis. The Schwalbe are very scary when cornering, itâs why I switched to the 45NRTH, which also allowed me to use only one wheelset for all winter, instead of two. I got more robustness issues with the Contis, notably in the hook region. But I did once a descent in 10cm of fresh snow and they were ok. On the flat with the same snow, there was no traction. The 45NRTH gives a sacrĂ© look at my MTB, I love it!
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Whatever studs you end up going with, remember that the studs require a bedding-in period at the beginning to prevent the studs from falling out, meaning you should ride the first 40â50 km on bare asphalt avoiding sudden braking and big acceleration moves.
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Also remember when you stop that your shoes probably donât have studs so while your bike might have grip you wonât
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Yeah, that one youâll notice pretty quickly⊠Better try to avoid stopping in places that look fully slippery, and it also means that often it is safer to keep riding rather than dismount and walk.
Will add that Iâve enjoyed my 45nrth Kahva 27.5 x 2.1 studded tires on my flat bar Salsa Journeyer. Used for commuting through Canadian winters and on our trails once they freeze up. Night and day difference in terms of traction and therefore confidence. Actually makes you want to ride because you feel safe doing so again. I rode one on my front last year but just grabbed one for the rear for this season because I enjoyed it so much.
I set them up tubeless to save a little weight. Like others have mentioned, in an ideal world youâd have both a non studded wet grip winter compound tire wheelset for the dryer asphalt days and a studded wheelset for the wet days.