SimpleSimon
Active Member
Many years ago I made "snow tires" for my bike with rawhide. Took a whole hide, set my strip cutter to one inch width, and spiraled around and around until I had about a 30 foot long strip. Then I soaked it in hot water, split one end back 6 inches or so and used those narrower tag ends to tie very tightly around a fat tire on my rear rim, then proceeded to stretch and wrap it around the tire/rim, overlapping it to give me a standing ridge edge every half inch or so to the outside. Tied off the outer end the same way as the inner. Let the wheel dry, hanging on a hook above the wood stove.
That rawhide shrunk up, tightened, and sprouted a ridge edge every half inch. In snow it gave good traction - on ice it wasn't as squirrelly as a rubber tire. Never tried to make a ski front - I just used a narrow road tire overinflated till it was hard as a rock.
That rawhide shrunk up, tightened, and sprouted a ridge edge every half inch. In snow it gave good traction - on ice it wasn't as squirrelly as a rubber tire. Never tried to make a ski front - I just used a narrow road tire overinflated till it was hard as a rock.
