Bike for snow roads!

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by Gaurav Tyagi [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

I am looking for a bike which can help me in snow weather. I am in Oakland. Please if you have some suggestions for me I will really appreciate that. Most probably I will buy online so If there are few things which I should take care while buying bike for this winter weather Please suggest those.

FWIW. This may be stating the obvious, but there are MANY different types of snow ... from powder to "concrete" snow.

And, there are many different types of snow-on-the-road-or-trail ... from rutted & crusted hardpack to slushy snow AND glare to uneven ice ...

Just short of a custom bike, the SURLY PUGSLEY is probably the benchmark bike for soft surface riding (e.g., sand and/or snow) ...

Basically, you probably want a bike which can accommodate the FATEST possible tires ... I probably wouldn't want to use anything smaller than a 26x2.1 or 700x53 tire, so a 26" MTB or a 29er.

• you will probably want fenders, BTW
  

WHERE are you planning on riding AND what do the people who live in that part of the "world" use or recommend?

I've spent a lot of time in the snow and I agree with Alfeng that the kind of snow matters. Only studded tires will work in icy conditions. (I've never used them, but that is what I hear.) Really dry and fluffy "powder" snow may not provide much grip with any tire but unless you are in the mountains it will change as it sits around and gets wetter and more compacted. Snow that can compact - the type that is best for snowballs I find is easy to ride on with my 26" x 2.1" tires on my mountain bike that has pretty aggressive tread. But with slicker road type tires of the same size this same snow is much harder to ride through.

The trail I regularly commute on had a period last winter where it snowed, melted some, and refroze full of icy footprints. It became really choppy hard pack and icy. It was tricky to keep my balance on it but it rattled me a lot because it was so uneven, hard and lumpy. It was slow going.

The Cycle Jerk rides the same trail that I ride and has some videos of that icy trail. Here are a couple of them. He also writes about using studded tires on it.

cyclejerk.blogspot.comsnow ride video.htmlOpen ↗

cyclejerk.blogspot.comproduct review snow tires and lhts.htmlOpen ↗

How much snow does Oakland get?