Continental Top Contact Winter Tire Review

The 26" version here...

Continental Tires "Top Contact- Winter" Tire Review: Winter- a typical winter at any rate- would have seen this review happen a lot sooner than it has taken, but as most of you well know, this has been a "winter of little winter", so to speak.

Conditions have been less than conducive to testing this tire, but I think I now have had enough, (barely), experiences to at least give a good impression on what you might expect from this winter specific tread.

The tires in question here went on my "Project Two Six" bike, which I built especially as a commuter/townie rig for these tires. It should be mentioned that a 700c X 37mm Top Contact Winter tire is also made by Continental, but at the time I was to do this review, none were available. That said, I think you can expect the same from either size in terms of performance/ride aspects.

Okay, before we get to the review, let's see what Continental says about the Top Contact Winter tires: (from the Conti website)

"We contribute all of our know-how as one of the leading automotive winter tyre producers into the new TopContact Winter II. And it shows. The tread design’s outer appearance alone is convincing due to its never-ending grip.

Thanks to countless lamellae, hundreds of biting edges permanently interlock with the surface. The tread compound that is adapted specifically to cold temperatures will even continue to get you going when other bike riders are spinning their wheels."

"Lamellae" tread pattern

 What are "lamellae"? Well, the term comes from "lamella", which is described as a "thin plate-like structure" by Wikipedia. In this case, it is representative of the myriad plate-like tread blocks with small, open spaces between them on the Top Contact Winter tire. Much like the pattern found on a Geko's feet, the Top Contact Winter tire is made for gripping and should impart a more secure feel on smoother, slippery surfaces. Now the big question: "Does it work?"


My quest to find suitable riding conditions one might encounter while using a tire of this sort was not easy. That's part of the challenge of doing reviews like this on specific use products. But, I did get out on compressed, icy snow, wet ice, granular snow, rough ice, and frozen chunky snow and ice along with plenty of crappy pavement and dirt ridden rides. 


Riding in winter time and looking for ice to ride over is very counter intuitive, by the way. Especially when for years I have been conditioned to avoid it like the plague, but I did it. First of all, those who might be thinking these tires are a "studded tire replacement" can stop here and be satisfied to know that they are "right" and nothing works as good as studs.........on ice. Put the test on a mix of dry pavement and snow, maybe a couple of icy patches thrown in, and the equation becomes turned around though. Anyone who has ridden studded tires knows the love they feel on ice and the hatred they feel on the longer stretches of dry pavement in between. 

Conti's best construction here.

The Top Contact Winter will grip far better than most any non-studded tire on glare ice, but not quite to the level of full on studs. Then again, the type of ice you get is going to determine a lot of this. Glare wet ice is tough even with full on studded tires, and not real good with Top Contact Winter tires. However; if you keep a sharp eye out for ice, and you are a "seasoned winter rider", you probably could do just fine on "most" ice. My experiences were mostly positive, with the lone exception of that wet, black ice, which isn't too surprising, really. 


Other types of conditions were really eye opening though. Packed snow with a nice shiny sheen to it was no match for these tires. Similarly, any icy, frozen snow with texture was super easy to find traction on, almost dry pavement like. I found the Top Contact to be an excellent tire for cutting into and down onto pavement through newer fallen snow, and dry pavement performance was more than acceptable. I used pressures from 40psi to 55psi in my tests, and even at higher pressures, the Top Contacts still made an impression of having great traction on sketchy snow and frozen, irregular ice formations. 

The Project Two-Six rig

Dry pavement commuting during post-snow melt conditions is often a mixed bag of sand, dirt, debris, and oddments not normally seen on the road side any other time of the year. (Lost mittens anyone?) I can say that the "PolyXBreaker" belt did its job and no glass bits, strips of metal, or other sharp objects made their way into the casing to puncture my tubes while I tested these tires. Continental also claims this bead to bead belt does not hamper rolling resistance and ride feel, which I can attest to. It rides quite decently for a commuter tire, and far, far better than any studded tire could. 


That said, the Top Contact Winter tires are not going to win you any extra speed. I know you could find faster tires for true, dry weather riding, but that is not what these were made for anyway. I mean, it does say "Winter" in the tire's name, and that should be a clue, right? 


Conclusions: The Continental Top Contact Winter tires are a definite advantage over standard tires in most winter time riding conditions. The relatively skinny, (for a 26"er), tires amazed me with traction that I thought couldn't be produced by a tire with such tiny tread features. I've got to hand it to Continental though, that "lamellae" really works. That said, you are still going to have to watch for the "black ice" and especially wet, slick ice because, like it or not, only studded tires will allow you to let your guard down a little bit there. The Top Contact Winter tires will give you a far better chance of not dumping it over regular tires though, but there is still "that chance". 


So, if your commute is a varied and mixed bag of snow, frozen snow, some ice, and dry pavement during the winter months, you may love these treads. If you are worried about the dreaded "black ice" and you see it more often than not, these may help, but studded tires will win over the Top Contacts there hands down. Pick yer poison. 


Note: Continental sent the Top Contact Winter tires over for review and testing at no charge. I was not paid, nor bribed for this review. I strive to give my honest thoughts and opinions throughout.

Continental Top Contact Winter Tire Review

The 26" version here...

Continental Tires "Top Contact- Winter" Tire Review: Winter- a typical winter at any rate- would have seen this review happen a lot sooner than it has taken, but as most of you well know, this has been a "winter of little winter", so to speak.

Conditions have been less than conducive to testing this tire, but I think I now have had enough, (barely), experiences to at least give a good impression on what you might expect from this winter specific tread.

The tires in question here went on my "Project Two Six" bike, which I built especially as a commuter/townie rig for these tires. It should be mentioned that a 700c X 37mm Top Contact Winter tire is also made by Continental, but at the time I was to do this review, none were available. That said, I think you can expect the same from either size in terms of performance/ride aspects.

Okay, before we get to the review, let's see what Continental says about the Top Contact Winter tires: (from the Conti website)

"We contribute all of our know-how as one of the leading automotive winter tyre producers into the new TopContact Winter II. And it shows. The tread design’s outer appearance alone is convincing due to its never-ending grip.

Thanks to countless lamellae, hundreds of biting edges permanently interlock with the surface. The tread compound that is adapted specifically to cold temperatures will even continue to get you going when other bike riders are spinning their wheels."

"Lamellae" tread pattern

 What are "lamellae"? Well, the term comes from "lamella", which is described as a "thin plate-like structure" by Wikipedia. In this case, it is representative of the myriad plate-like tread blocks with small, open spaces between them on the Top Contact Winter tire. Much like the pattern found on a Geko's feet, the Top Contact Winter tire is made for gripping and should impart a more secure feel on smoother, slippery surfaces. Now the big question: "Does it work?"


My quest to find suitable riding conditions one might encounter while using a tire of this sort was not easy. That's part of the challenge of doing reviews like this on specific use products. But, I did get out on compressed, icy snow, wet ice, granular snow, rough ice, and frozen chunky snow and ice along with plenty of crappy pavement and dirt ridden rides. 


Riding in winter time and looking for ice to ride over is very counter intuitive, by the way. Especially when for years I have been conditioned to avoid it like the plague, but I did it. First of all, those who might be thinking these tires are a "studded tire replacement" can stop here and be satisfied to know that they are "right" and nothing works as good as studs.........on ice. Put the test on a mix of dry pavement and snow, maybe a couple of icy patches thrown in, and the equation becomes turned around though. Anyone who has ridden studded tires knows the love they feel on ice and the hatred they feel on the longer stretches of dry pavement in between. 

Conti's best construction here.

The Top Contact Winter will grip far better than most any non-studded tire on glare ice, but not quite to the level of full on studs. Then again, the type of ice you get is going to determine a lot of this. Glare wet ice is tough even with full on studded tires, and not real good with Top Contact Winter tires. However; if you keep a sharp eye out for ice, and you are a "seasoned winter rider", you probably could do just fine on "most" ice. My experiences were mostly positive, with the lone exception of that wet, black ice, which isn't too surprising, really. 


Other types of conditions were really eye opening though. Packed snow with a nice shiny sheen to it was no match for these tires. Similarly, any icy, frozen snow with texture was super easy to find traction on, almost dry pavement like. I found the Top Contact to be an excellent tire for cutting into and down onto pavement through newer fallen snow, and dry pavement performance was more than acceptable. I used pressures from 40psi to 55psi in my tests, and even at higher pressures, the Top Contacts still made an impression of having great traction on sketchy snow and frozen, irregular ice formations. 

The Project Two-Six rig

Dry pavement commuting during post-snow melt conditions is often a mixed bag of sand, dirt, debris, and oddments not normally seen on the road side any other time of the year. (Lost mittens anyone?) I can say that the "PolyXBreaker" belt did its job and no glass bits, strips of metal, or other sharp objects made their way into the casing to puncture my tubes while I tested these tires. Continental also claims this bead to bead belt does not hamper rolling resistance and ride feel, which I can attest to. It rides quite decently for a commuter tire, and far, far better than any studded tire could. 


That said, the Top Contact Winter tires are not going to win you any extra speed. I know you could find faster tires for true, dry weather riding, but that is not what these were made for anyway. I mean, it does say "Winter" in the tire's name, and that should be a clue, right? 


Conclusions: The Continental Top Contact Winter tires are a definite advantage over standard tires in most winter time riding conditions. The relatively skinny, (for a 26"er), tires amazed me with traction that I thought couldn't be produced by a tire with such tiny tread features. I've got to hand it to Continental though, that "lamellae" really works. That said, you are still going to have to watch for the "black ice" and especially wet, slick ice because, like it or not, only studded tires will allow you to let your guard down a little bit there. The Top Contact Winter tires will give you a far better chance of not dumping it over regular tires though, but there is still "that chance". 


So, if your commute is a varied and mixed bag of snow, frozen snow, some ice, and dry pavement during the winter months, you may love these treads. If you are worried about the dreaded "black ice" and you see it more often than not, these may help, but studded tires will win over the Top Contacts there hands down. Pick yer poison. 


Note: Continental sent the Top Contact Winter tires over for review and testing at no charge. I was not paid, nor bribed for this review. I strive to give my honest thoughts and opinions throughout.

Project 26: Completed

I had to put this on the back burner for a while due to Triple D. It is my project to get a bike built around a set of Continental Top Contact Winter 26"er tires. It also was taking a lot longer than I wanted to due to the persnickety roller cam brakes. Anyway, you can go back to the original post here if you want.

Old MTB turned commuter

So, here it is in all its vintage mtb glory. This started out life as a Schwinn High Sierra, probably from '86 or so. It came stock with SunTour Rollercam brakes, so I had to stick with those as brakes. They are a bit temperamental  and it took several tries to get them to operate correctly. The only other surviving parts from the original bike are the seat post, seat post quick release, and the head set.

The wheels are even older, having come from an old Mongoose All Mountain  Pro from about 1984-85 vintage. The rims are drilled like fatbike rims and have a gold foil rim strip showing through the grey anodized aluminum. The hubs are Suzue sealed bearing units with bolt on axles. Another component from that bike is here in the form of the SunTour top mount shifter.

Next we have the stem, which was pilfered from an early 90's Schwinn Criss-Cross hybrid bike. That holds a pair of Ergon GE-1 grips and a Salsa Moto Ace 17 degree sweep bar. Brake levers are early 90's Shimano Deore DX SLR two finger type in a black anodized hue, (or is that paint? Dunno. They are very black though.).

These about drove me mad.

The crank set is from an early 80's Specialized touring bike. The Sugino arms have a nice, pearly ano finish. I miss this look in components! I bolted a single Sugino 38T ring to this. The crank set spins on a 90's vintage Shimano UN-52 sealed cartridge bottom bracket. I suspect this used bottom bracket will easily outlast this bike.

The pedals are some old Odyssey Triple Traps. These were some of my favorite old pedals back in the day.

The chain is a Sedis Sport from Sachs, which was bought out by SRAM eventually. Sedis chain was my preferred 90's mtb chain, and they do last a long time. This one is from back in the day. I pulled it out from my single speed box, since I save these old Sedis chains for single speed duty when I find them. Fortunately it was the perfect length for this application.

Butchered!

The chain turns through a SunTour MounTech derailleur which shifts that chain over a five speed SunTour freewheel. Again, I wanted to go single speed with this rig, but the wheels I had would not allow for this sort of set up.

The five speed set up will be simple, should stay working through most winter muck, and should last a long time. Not single speed simple, but it should be okay.

The saddle is from a 70's Raleigh Gran Prix. It is a Wrights leather saddle, very similar to a Brooks B-17. I "butchered" it to look more like a Brooks Swift model. I actually rode this very saddle, (pre-butchered), on the longest single ride I have ever done, which was over 160 miles.

I then bolted on some accessories. I had an old Vetta rack, which was used for touring back in the day by me, (I think!). Then I grabbed a set of  Planet Bike Hardcore Fenders and slapped those in there. Finally, my old touring days are represented here by my vintage Jaand Mountain panniers.

The reason for the whole deal.

During my test ride of this set up today, I found that everything works just fine. Shifts great, brakes work, position is upright-ish and comfy. I do think I will need to buy one thing to make it really useable though. That would be a Brooks saddle.

I'm thinking a Brooks B-67 in black is what I need here. My aim is to make the bike as comfortable and useful as possible, and that saddle will go a long way to making it so. Okay, other than that, the bike is finished.

Now, about those tires! I have only ridden them down to the store and back, so this is merely a very brief impression, but the grip is definitely there on packed down snow. Of course, the real test will be when we start getting some ice here and there. I'll be back with more about the tires, and this bike, in due time.

Continental sent the  Top Contact Winter tires over for test and review at no charge. I am not being paid, nor bribed to do this review and I will strive to give my honest thoughts and opinions throughout.

Project 26: Completed

I had to put this on the back burner for a while due to Triple D. It is my project to get a bike built around a set of Continental Top Contact Winter 26"er tires. It also was taking a lot longer than I wanted to due to the persnickety roller cam brakes. Anyway, you can go back to the original post here if you want.

Old MTB turned commuter

So, here it is in all its vintage mtb glory. This started out life as a Schwinn High Sierra, probably from '86 or so. It came stock with SunTour Rollercam brakes, so I had to stick with those as brakes. They are a bit temperamental  and it took several tries to get them to operate correctly. The only other surviving parts from the original bike are the seat post, seat post quick release, and the head set.

The wheels are even older, having come from an old Mongoose All Mountain  Pro from about 1984-85 vintage. The rims are drilled like fatbike rims and have a gold foil rim strip showing through the grey anodized aluminum. The hubs are Suzue sealed bearing units with bolt on axles. Another component from that bike is here in the form of the SunTour top mount shifter.

Next we have the stem, which was pilfered from an early 90's Schwinn Criss-Cross hybrid bike. That holds a pair of Ergon GE-1 grips and a Salsa Moto Ace 17 degree sweep bar. Brake levers are early 90's Shimano Deore DX SLR two finger type in a black anodized hue, (or is that paint? Dunno. They are very black though.).

These about drove me mad.

The crank set is from an early 80's Specialized touring bike. The Sugino arms have a nice, pearly ano finish. I miss this look in components! I bolted a single Sugino 38T ring to this. The crank set spins on a 90's vintage Shimano UN-52 sealed cartridge bottom bracket. I suspect this used bottom bracket will easily outlast this bike.

The pedals are some old Odyssey Triple Traps. These were some of my favorite old pedals back in the day.

The chain is a Sedis Sport from Sachs, which was bought out by SRAM eventually. Sedis chain was my preferred 90's mtb chain, and they do last a long time. This one is from back in the day. I pulled it out from my single speed box, since I save these old Sedis chains for single speed duty when I find them. Fortunately it was the perfect length for this application.

Butchered!

The chain turns through a SunTour MounTech derailleur which shifts that chain over a five speed SunTour freewheel. Again, I wanted to go single speed with this rig, but the wheels I had would not allow for this sort of set up.

The five speed set up will be simple, should stay working through most winter muck, and should last a long time. Not single speed simple, but it should be okay.

The saddle is from a 70's Raleigh Gran Prix. It is a Wrights leather saddle, very similar to a Brooks B-17. I "butchered" it to look more like a Brooks Swift model. I actually rode this very saddle, (pre-butchered), on the longest single ride I have ever done, which was over 160 miles.

I then bolted on some accessories. I had an old Vetta rack, which was used for touring back in the day by me, (I think!). Then I grabbed a set of  Planet Bike Hardcore Fenders and slapped those in there. Finally, my old touring days are represented here by my vintage Jaand Mountain panniers.

The reason for the whole deal.

During my test ride of this set up today, I found that everything works just fine. Shifts great, brakes work, position is upright-ish and comfy. I do think I will need to buy one thing to make it really useable though. That would be a Brooks saddle.

I'm thinking a Brooks B-67 in black is what I need here. My aim is to make the bike as comfortable and useful as possible, and that saddle will go a long way to making it so. Okay, other than that, the bike is finished.

Now, about those tires! I have only ridden them down to the store and back, so this is merely a very brief impression, but the grip is definitely there on packed down snow. Of course, the real test will be when we start getting some ice here and there. I'll be back with more about the tires, and this bike, in due time.

Continental sent the  Top Contact Winter tires over for test and review at no charge. I am not being paid, nor bribed to do this review and I will strive to give my honest thoughts and opinions throughout.

Project Two-Six

Yes, it is a full moon, and you aren't seeing things. The title says "Project Two-Six". There is a good reason for that, so read on, if you dare!

Old. Reliable. Works.

The deal here is that I was asked to test something out. A pair of tires, to be exact. The tires in question were available at one time in 700c size, but stock was out and not likely to become available in a timely manner for the purposes of this test. (Not that it matters so far, but read on....)

The question was asked: "Don't you have a townie to put the other size tire on?" Well, I said that I had an old Schwinn that I had "Xtracycled", maybe that would work? And the deal was on. Tires were sent out, and I would put them on the old Xtracycle. Or would I?

Enter in an old, ancient, long forgotten project I started almost ten years ago. Of course, the Xtracycle is a 26"er, and at the time of the question about the tires, I thought it was the only 26"er I had left in my possession. However; then I recalled that old, forgotten project bike. Hmm.......maybe this is what I need to finally get that thing back together. I had all the old parts in boxes yet. Should be simple. But, I can't leave well enough alone!

You see, this bike, another old Schwinn, was a geared mountain bike I got that I had stripped down to bare metal, had powder coated, and then I had designs on really doing a "custom-modified" restoration. Kind of a hot rodded version of the stock bike.

But that was all out the window now. This was going to become a "winter time commuter bike", or so I thought.  I had intended on not putting derailleurs on this bike, and keeping it single speed seemed the right thing to do. However; after two failed attempts at single speeding rear wheels for the project, (One had a stuck on freewheel, the other a sealed bearing set up with an off-set axle), I decided a 1 X 5 would be okay.

So out came an old SunTour top mount, a MounTech rear derailleur, and SunTour 5 speed rear freewheel. Everything going on this bike, sans the grips, tires, handle bar, and tubes, is older than 1990. Probably older than 1988! I may end up putting on some fenders though, so there will be another newer part. But this will be pretty vintage stuff all around, for the most part.

Stay tuned for the final build, which should appear soon. Now, back to that test I mentioned. The tires are Continental's Top Contact Winter tires. These are "stud killers", supposedly. The idea is sort of like those Bridgestone "Blizzak" car tires. Very sticky-soft rubber with tons of working edges to grip ice and snow covered surfaces. So.......I am sure you see what the problem is! 

Since there hasn't been much of a winter, (yet), this test may be still born before it starts. But, there still is plenty of time for something of a winter to happen, so I will get this together and test ride it to de-bug anything needing de-bugging. Hopefully "Project Two-Six" will see the light of day before the weekend.

Project Two-Six

Yes, it is a full moon, and you aren't seeing things. The title says "Project Two-Six". There is a good reason for that, so read on, if you dare!

Old. Reliable. Works.

The deal here is that I was asked to test something out. A pair of tires, to be exact. The tires in question were available at one time in 700c size, but stock was out and not likely to become available in a timely manner for the purposes of this test. (Not that it matters so far, but read on....)

The question was asked: "Don't you have a townie to put the other size tire on?" Well, I said that I had an old Schwinn that I had "Xtracycled", maybe that would work? And the deal was on. Tires were sent out, and I would put them on the old Xtracycle. Or would I?

Enter in an old, ancient, long forgotten project I started almost ten years ago. Of course, the Xtracycle is a 26"er, and at the time of the question about the tires, I thought it was the only 26"er I had left in my possession. However; then I recalled that old, forgotten project bike. Hmm.......maybe this is what I need to finally get that thing back together. I had all the old parts in boxes yet. Should be simple. But, I can't leave well enough alone!

You see, this bike, another old Schwinn, was a geared mountain bike I got that I had stripped down to bare metal, had powder coated, and then I had designs on really doing a "custom-modified" restoration. Kind of a hot rodded version of the stock bike.

But that was all out the window now. This was going to become a "winter time commuter bike", or so I thought.  I had intended on not putting derailleurs on this bike, and keeping it single speed seemed the right thing to do. However; after two failed attempts at single speeding rear wheels for the project, (One had a stuck on freewheel, the other a sealed bearing set up with an off-set axle), I decided a 1 X 5 would be okay.

So out came an old SunTour top mount, a MounTech rear derailleur, and SunTour 5 speed rear freewheel. Everything going on this bike, sans the grips, tires, handle bar, and tubes, is older than 1990. Probably older than 1988! I may end up putting on some fenders though, so there will be another newer part. But this will be pretty vintage stuff all around, for the most part.

Stay tuned for the final build, which should appear soon. Now, back to that test I mentioned. The tires are Continental's Top Contact Winter tires. These are "stud killers", supposedly. The idea is sort of like those Bridgestone "Blizzak" car tires. Very sticky-soft rubber with tons of working edges to grip ice and snow covered surfaces. So.......I am sure you see what the problem is! 

Since there hasn't been much of a winter, (yet), this test may be still born before it starts. But, there still is plenty of time for something of a winter to happen, so I will get this together and test ride it to de-bug anything needing de-bugging. Hopefully "Project Two-Six" will see the light of day before the weekend.