Forty years ago I was regularly riding through the winter. Some days I was riding a Raleigh 3 speed (full coverage fenders, so great in the rain) but most days I was riding my Bob Jackson racing bike with Michelin Elan 23mm tires. In snow the skinny tires did cut through to pavement and I was generally fine. I was riding in the western suburbs of Boston and the roads were regularly plowed, so I rarely was riding through more than about 3 inches of snow. The only times I crashed was when snow was covering ice in a turn. Then I would crash pretty hard. But when you're 22 years old, you tend to bounce off the pavement, so no big deal. And I was riding back roads, so virtually no traffic to deal with.
But these days, the thought of hitting the pavement sends chills up my arthritic spine, so I ride with studs. The studs are useless most of the time, since the towns spread salt on all of the roads these days. But there are those days, when you're riding home from work after dark, and it's been a bit above freezing with the sun out, and the snow banks on each side of the road were in melt mode for several hours, and now the temperature is 29, it's an hour after sundown, and all of that water has frozen, and your lights don't clearly show the difference between clear pavement and icy pavement, yup, those are the days when your ride home is very slow. On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 5:38 PM, Deacon Patrick <[email protected]> wrote: > Rona et al, > > There are two schools of thought when it comes to snow riding: thinish > tires that cut through the snow on top to bite on the “bed rock snow” > beneith or wider tires to float on top. Handling is different for each and > shifting from one to the other harrowing, but both are very doable, > conditions depending, with a lot of overlap. Only experience can tell what > works for each of us daft enough to have fun in the slop! Grin. > > In my experience the only time studs are needed is ice, not snow or > snowpack. If ice is a regular issue for your rides, definately get studs. > If not, they are annoying to ride with, even for occational ice. > > With abandon, > Patrick > > On Wednesday, November 8, 2017 at 8:33:21 AM UTC-7, RonaTD wrote: > > On Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 9:02:29 AM UTC-6, David B wrote: > > The Nokian A10s are good for regularly plowed roads. They measure around > 35mm, so they'll look tiny on a Clem but would work fine for commuting on > plowed roads. I used them for a couple winters in Chicago on a 650b road > bike conversion. > > They're not ideal for more snowy roads. For that I'd go with a 2.1" > option. > > > > > > That doesn't match my experience. I have A10 650B tires and Schwalbe > Winter Marathon 26x2.1". In the typical plowed-but-slushy-with-tire-tracks > conditions that we have here, the 2.1" tires on my Riv ATB float too > easily, causing abrupt loss of control in an exciting/terrifying way. The > A10s on my Cheviot and on my Protovelo(Bleriot) are far more stable. On the > Cheviot the long wheelbase really helps, too. The reality is that deep > (say, more than 4"), fresh snow is challenging for any bicycle. > > > > > > Ted Durant > > Milwaukee, WI > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Peter White -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
