Last week, just as I was leaving to go to the Funduro down in Illinois, our set of 45NRTH Wrathlordes was delivered. This is the most exciting new set of tires that I’ve laid eyes on since say…the Johnny Fives last winter.
The Wrathlordes sport 300 concave studs per tire with an aggressive tread pattern and a unique 4.2″ width. At the event last weekend we awarded a set of these new studded tires so there was a fair amount of chatter about them. One of the more popular questions was, How much do they weigh? Our set of review tires tipped the scales at 1524g and 1514 g. That’s lighter than any of us had guessed.
We measured our test tires and laid out flat the Bead to Bead measurement was 238 mm and the tread to tread was 135 mm edge to edge. The tread blocks at the center are 5.5mm tall, with the intermediate knobs measuring 6.25 mm and the monster shoulder knobs measured a whopping 8 mm!
I mounted our set of Wrathlordes onto 100mm wide HED Carbon wheels and the casing measured 111.7 mm and the tread width was 105.4 mm. I wanted to mount them on our set of 80mm rims, but I discovered the disc brake mounts were cracked on the rear hub, so the initial testing of these babies had to move to these wider wheels. I’ll revisit these tires on 80mm rims as soon as we get that wheel rebuilt.
When I went for a ride this morning the temp was 19 degrees F and a fresh 3 inches of snow had fallen overnight. This year the snow riding has come early and often! November 7th, 2019 was doing a fairly convincing impression of January 2020 and there were spots that made me wish that I had studded tires on my Corvus FLT. So after my ride, I mounted these guys up and even put a pair of Wolftooth Components pogies for my next morning’s ride.
I pinged Steve at 45Nrth to see if they had any recommendations for bedding in the studs and this was the reply we received back.
It’s best to eyeball them and check any questionable ones with a stud tool. I know the industry likes to use language around “bedding” studs by riding more slowly in a straight line for a while. But in reality, the amount of direct pressure needed to set a stud can’t be achieved by riding on them. If anything, riding on a stud that isn’t bedded will more likely pop the stud out rather than drive it into place.
Steve – 45NRTH
I took the new tires out the back way along the railroad tracks where there’s a bunch of frozen puddles. In the summertime, these things are full of tadpoles, but this morning they were almost frozen solid. The air temp was 13 F. After that, I rode up to Lake Mills and took it kind of easy because I was still operating under the impression that I needed to conduct some sort of break-in period. Next ride, I’ll get a little more skiddy at the tadpole factory. I’ll be riding these guys all winter long and I’ll be sure to get them mounted to 80mm rims as soon as I can. Look for a full review somewhere down the trail, vatos!
For more information visit – https://45nrth.com/products/wrathlorde
thanks for the measurements and weights. It would be nice to see a side by side with these mounted up next to D5, D4, Wrathchild, and the Wazia, Cake Eater, J5.
So, width wise that kinda falls between the D4 and D5 but with more aggression? Very interesting….