reTyre: they’re tyres that zip into place!

 Zip them on in a matter of seconds, right after you’ve spent 20 minutes picking the mud and horse shite out of the zip teeth

Studded tyres have been around for ages and are cheap as chips - I purchased a set of 35mm Schwalbe Winters for £20 each this winter.  Rode a 70km fast road ride on them just fine.

 I could see myself swapping these twice a year - October and March (I live in Scotland). That's about 10 minutes of DIY, or if I *really* couldn't be ased, probably £20 at an LBS. 

Let's be charitable and say the cost of the basic base tyre and the studded skin is £80. The cost of a decent studded tyre is £20, a decent city tyre maybe £30. so £50 a pair, per wheel. Let's say we're at break-even. 

Which leaves you with the risk of the zip-ons failing - catching a sidewall on a kerb or rock, clogging up with road filth and salt, etc, along with being way heavier /larger than the alternatives. And you have to do the unzipping/on-zipping, assuming that all goes well after 6 months of non-use/use. 

Sorry to be a downer on someone's dreams, but I just cannot see this flying. Happy to be proved wrong.

article wrote:

The base tyres have RRPs of US$35.99 (standard type) and US$69.99 (premium type). The off-road skin is US$54.99 while the urban winter skin – with 156 studs – is US$69.99.

That's between $212 and $280 for two tyres and urban skins.  Struggling to see why you wouldn't just buy another wheelset if you genuinely need to swap between studs and studless on a daily basis. I bet swapping out wheels takes less time than faffing about with (rusty?) zips.

double post

Make sure you don't bungle that zippy, Jeffrey....

Sometimes innovation comes along and changes the world. Sometimes it can offer a small improvement in a niche area. Sometimes the innovative part is convincing people that there is a problem at all. Then there are ideas like this.

Well I can do that with any Hutchinson tire and some Gorilla glue, see after about 800 to 1000 miles the center smooth part of the tire begins to peel off away from the cornering tread, much like a retread truck tire you see blown off on highways, so all Hutchinson would have to do is to make different types of center treads  and produce a glue that would allow easier pulling off and we could simply pull off the one and glue on the other...

They taking the effing piss with this! The amount of time you would lose fitting them and the garbage ride adding yet more rotating weight for conditions that are more likely to be slower/stop-start riding would more than be vastly more by using a not quite perfect tyre for the conditions.

Utterly bonkers!

Quote:

Correct treading provides better grip, less rolling resistance and a better biking experience,” says reTyre.

Unless your tyre is really stiff from too much rubber/thick puncture strip/poor carcuss, so as these will fit into at least two of those categories in a major way (at least when the outer tread is zipped on), the rolling resistance will be way higher and completely negate any benefit provided by the tread pattern.

Strikes me that these guys are coming at a problem from the wrong angle, but have no choice as if it was just another 'normal' all round tyre the product would likely go completely un-noticed and will probably be out performed by the existing offerings.

I think I'll stick with stuff from other manufacturers that offer good all round tyres thanks to well designed tread patterns and quality construction (schwalbe G-ones, Panaracer Gravel King SKs, etc).

Good luck to them though as I can see these would be great for city bikes where a quick switch to winter condition tyres would be made very easy and do-able by people not up to other bike maintenance.

weren't these around a while ago?

I imagine that these are only compatile with Zipp wheels...

Why take two tyres on your commute when you can take four?

Where have these been all my life?

Great. Now my tyres can have tyres on them.