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Bicycle tires for Berlin's winter, recommendations?
This winter I would like to be a little bit mor… I'm kinda new to icy winters, and last year had to fell two times from my bike until I provisionally wrapped my wheels in zip ties, and kind of worked.
This winter I would like to be a little bit more prepared and want to check about winter tires. Because here in Berlin, bike lines and sidewalks are mostly ignored by whomever is taking care of melting icy streets, so when I check for articles I don't know if my reference point is a wild path or a city path, as I don't know how icy bike lanes are treated in other cities.
That's why I would like to know your recommendations.
Does it make sense to get a tire with spikes? Or a normal winter adapted tire should be enough?
Does it makes worse to ride with a spiky tire over asphalt?
note: I tend to also to choose bike paths that go along parks like the one in Hasenhaide, that has no cars, buy gets no ice treatment.
The zip tie trick works because it gives you edges, but what actually keeps you upright on ice is having those edges cut into the surface rather than just sit on top, so a proper studded tire is a real step up. For Hasenheide specifically I'd skip the 240 stud version and just get a single studded front tire, since most of your falls come from the front washing out and a rear stud tire mostly just slows you down on the long paved stretch along the park.
Also worth thinking about pressure, which people forget. Run your tires around 2 bar instead of the 3.5 or 4 you'd use in summer, because a softer contact patch grips the cold asphalt much better even without studs. Studs on bare tarmac do wear, but the carbide tips last a couple of seasons if you're not doing 20km a day on clear roads, and they're cheap enough to replace.
For the park paths you might also drop your saddle a touch and lower your center of gravity, it makes a bigger difference than people expect when you hit a patch of Eis under the trees where the sun never reaches.
One thing worth knowing is that Berlin's winter gritting on bike paths is handled by the Bezirke, not the Senat, so treatment varies wildly street to street. Tempelhofer Feld and the Hasenheide paths basically never get salt, but the main roads around them like Columbiadamm usually do, so a route that mixes both is the tricky part. If you're mostly on park gravel, a studded front tire plus a normal knobby rear is a decent compromise since the rear sliding is more recoverable than the front washing out. And yes, riding studs on bare asphalt wears the carbide tips down fast, so I'd only commit to them if you're genuinely on ice several mornings a week.
spikes are worth it if you're doing Hasenheide and other park paths regularly. Schwalbe Marathon Winter is the standard pick here, 240 or 120 spikes depending on how much you want to spend. On bare asphalt they're loud and slow and the spikes wear down over a season or two, but you won't eat shit on black ice, which is the whole point. If you mostly ride cleared Hauptstrassen then a normal winter tire like the Continental Top Contact Winter is prob enough, but for untreated park paths I'd go spiked on the front at least.
What is the correct spelling for a street name that appears differently on multiple signs in Charlottenburg?
Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.
if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point
honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.
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