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A quick ride up to River Bends completed the recommended 30 mile break-in period for the Nokian Hakka WXC300 tires that I picked up for winter riding. The relatively-giant knobs and studs make for an uncomfortable, difficult, vibration-y ride and lead to sore sit bones. The metal on pavement contact also makes for a twitchy ride, very similar to what one finds when riding in light snow. At one point I automatically braked hard while turning and my front wheel slipped while making a harsh metal on stone sound.
During this break-in period no studs were lost, likely due to careful braking, acceleration, and turning. As can be seen here (full res) the center studs which had more contact with pavement were pushed further into the tire, which should help keep them from tearing out during normal use this winter. I can’t help but think of a device which would perform this break-in automatically over the course of a few hours using a motor, weights, an old fork, and an old grinding stone, but that’d definitely be overkill for just me and my one set of tires.
Now that this process is complete I can’t wait to get normal tires back on the bike and ride some single track before the weather gets really bad. I may try for this tomorrow, but with the current forecast it looks like it’ll be sometime mid-week before that’s possible.