45NRTH  Wrathchild Studded Fat Tire - 120 TPI

So I will start out with the negative, this tire does not roll the best and a set costs more than an entry level hardtail.. Now that that's out of the way, the reason it rolls poorly is because of the SHEER AMOUNT OF GRIP that it has. Once I got the pressure dialed in for my bike. My goodness, I am biking on ice/snow at 80% or more of what I can do on dirt. I feel comfortable hitting jumps on snowy single track with this tire. I did not think this would be possible. If you ride somewhere you get a lot of freeze thaw/ice/snow this is the tire. I took extra care and manually seated each stud, and so far after 200 miles of use I have lost 2, and that was on a bare rock step up which I didn't take too well. the roll better than snowshoe 2xls, but worse then ground control 4.0s and Dillinger's (the other tires I have used for reference) but blow them all away for grip in all conditions other than 1st tracks of the day (the 2xls win on that). The only downside is you have to pedal more than some other tires, but I'd rather have to pedal a little harder and KNOW I have grip when descending, then have an easier time going up and be uneasy the whole way down.

Got it as a front tire and couldn’t be happier with it other than the fact that the 26x4.6 casing on Wrathchild is narrower than the Dunderbeist (4.6) that is in back. The Dunderbeist works good with it, but I wish I bought a Wrathchild for the back tire too, so I could keep the backend from passing me on corners and downhill grades...haven’t gotten enough snow to tell how it does in the deep stuff.

Once I got over the price this was the clear choice for me. Riding on ice is almost like riding on dirt now. I debated between these and the Dillingers but I do some challenging terrain and ride semi-fast so I thought the performance of these would be ideal. Also, they will be used (almost) exclusively on snow & ice.

Used Dillinger 5s for 6 seasons, wanted to try something a little more aggressive and Wrathchilds looked the part. They work well on packed/groomed snow, but even at ultra-low psi they were slipping and sliding all over in fresh snow. (To the point of mockery by the other riders.) Maybe that is the expected outcome, but based on this limited experience (spanning 2 days on a variety of trails) wish I’d stuck w Dillingers.

Great treads. 5 rides on variety of substrate - hard packed snow and ice, pond ice, driveway ice, snow with rutted icy skinny tire tracks, 3 inches of Soft compactable snow. Haven’t had it out in fresh powder but in the above conditions the traction has been superb. No auto steer. And zero lost studs. So much better than Vee avalanche studded that they replaced. Not the fastest or lightest tire but it is snow and fatbiking.