UPDATE: read my review on these tires here

New tires never fail to excite, even though there’s no snow to be found. UPS just dropped off a set of tires for my ice racing beater. This year I’ll be using something other than my all-time favorite Bridgestone Blizzak WS-50 to see what innovations are out there. There were a few contenders for my pick this season, but I wanted to try something really different: I ended up settling on Green Diamond Icelander tires (http://www.greendiamondtire.com), which are studless but feature Silicon carbide granules in the tread compound to achieve near-studded ice traction. The initial compound is rubber-only, so it should take some road miles to expose the carbide crystals. They shipped quickly to me from my local distributor in upstate NY.

First impressions? They have pretty mean siping and large voids between tall tread blocks. If anything, there’s more open area than Blizzaks, but the compound is quite a bit harder. Unlike WS-50s, they are sided (though strangely not directional). Also notably they are remolded (recycled), which is quite rare in passenger car tires.

I predict these will wear longer than Blizzaks, handle snow competently, and I absolutely can’t wait to try them on ice. Stay tuned for a later article and review of actual performance. If only it would just frickin’ SNOW!