Commuting as before

On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 18:44:35 -0800, [email hidden] (Tom Keats)

Quoted message said:

In article <BdlEd.38434$Xk.12246@pd7tw3no>,

Fabrizio Mazzoleni said:

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyhow, I just got a little (very little) riding
in, myself -- my first tentative attempt at ice
biking, up & down the back lanes.

Sorry Tom but that was really just a waste of time.

If you're going to insist on living so near to the
Arctic circle then you must hang up the bike and
work out in the gym.

As it turned out, riding with a top-heavy load of
laundry in the milk crate was an exercise in futility.
If I can't pack stuff, riding just ain't worth it.
I ended up slowly hoofing it to the laundromat with a
heavy gunny sack pulling my shoulder out of its socket.

<snip>

Hi Tom, new poster here.

I spent a couple of car-less years in Lethbridge Alberta, and rode in
all weather. The only way I found to ride safely in winter with ice on
the main roads, and unplowed side streets was to use studded tires.

At the time, the local bike shop made up a set for me for about
$50.00 labour plus the cost of the tires (this was in the early
nineties), but you can now get them commercially.

HTH,

currenly a sometime car use/frequent year-round cyclist back in the
milder climes of Toronto-land,

Shirley Hicks

Tom Keats said:

David Reuteler said:

i'm in australia. spent yesterday at the beach, a lovely 27C.

Are you getting any touring/riding in, there?

nah, i'm here for family reasons on short hotice (my grandmother passed away
sadly) so no cycling, but lots of eating (i'm packing on the kilos), prawns
on the barbie, english tea cakes, pavlova, all that good stuff. never
noticed that weet-bix are subtly different than weet-a-bix before. i've
also been eating myself sick on musk sticks. gads, pure gluclose!

sometime before 40 i'd like to ride from adelaide to brisbane, tho. hitting
up all the relatives on the way for room & board, of course.

in the mean time i'd be missing the better part of our winter, of course.
--
david reuteler
[email hidden]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 04:36:44 GMT, "Fabrizio Mazzoleni" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

"Mike Kruger" <[email hidden]> wrote in message >

Quoted message said:

If Jan Ullrich had spent more time at German laundromats,
and less time at other, undisclosed locations, he might not
have accumulated the "dirty laundry" that has marred his
career, e.g.

That was a couple of years ago and it was only just
some baby recreational drugs.

Did you see how fit Jan was looking last week in
Scherzingen? Jan is now at Mallorca with the
rest of the T-Mobile guys for a training camp.

Lance does not have any hope of finishing in yellow
this July with the way Jan, Vinokourov and Kloden
are looking.

Now you're just channelling Mart Smeets. ;-)

jj

Tom Keats said:

the block. I'm not going to bother with the homemade
studded tire trick (I say that now ...)

Home made studded tires, using sheet metal screws, work
very well as long as you don't run pavement. They are
fairly mild steel and wear down fast.

In my local winter riding (during the past three years,
one winter being quite snowy, and the others more freezing
rain than snow), I still end up on pavement more often
than snow. I was actually rather shocked at how quickly
the steel screws wore down on asphalt. I'm talking about
a couple weeks and they were largely gone!

You definitely need to swap them out as soon as the roads
are mostly clear. In my area, that's perhaps 3 days after
a storm.

SMH

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:39:14 -0500, <[email hidden]>,

Stephen Harding said:

In my local winter riding (during the past three years,
one winter being quite snowy, and the others more freezing
rain than snow), I still end up on pavement more often
than snow. I was actually rather shocked at how quickly
the steel screws wore down on asphalt. I'm talking about
a couple weeks and they were largely gone!

To accumulate a couple of weeks of winter riding takes more than a few
years here because it melts quickly. This is my fourth year with these
screws. I didn't need them more than once one winter. They're still
sharp enough to grip on ice, snag clothes and draw blood.

One reason for the fixie is that the screwed tires have so much
rolling resistance that the bike can't coast far anyway
..
This is the dicey time when it's melting during the day and freezing
at night. Most major routes are clear and dry. Side streets are great
when they're of compacted snow. The un-studded tires are rideable in
most situations where my slicks suck. I might have to look at getting
a treaded HP MTB tire. Slush left where scuds get themselves un-stuck
is the ugliest stuff for pedalling through.

Last night's ride landed me two wipe outs. The other riders were
dabbing constantly. Everybody wiped out at least once. Still, there's
something about making hay while the sun shines, or whatever.

I took public transit to a destination that consistently takes ~45
minutes. It was eighty minutes by bus, with good connections.
It was 68 minutes on the studs through mixed slick and slop.
--
zk

In article <[email hidden]>,

Zoot Katz said:

I took public transit to a destination that consistently takes ~45
minutes.

Didja remember to pay the extra 2 bits as per the recent
fare hike? I keep forgetting. Riding has so disabused
me of public transit. Today I got to take the bus to
a site at 38th & Dunbar. If I could have ridden there,
it would have been perfect -- a straight shot from home,
up the bike route. But my job was to clear the snow off
the floor of a newly framed house, and if it wasn't for
the snow I wouldn't have had the work anywayz, so I'd have
ridden there for nothing, except maybe (ugh) swamping around.

It's going to snain (snow + rain) tomorrow, so I'm taking
the day off, unless a site supervisor calls me in.

Snap-On boot soles are horrible on slippery surfaces
like ice. I guess they're meant for indoors, like
concrete warehouse floors. Maybe Kodiaks would be better
for my purposes.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 21:43:33 -0800, <[email hidden]>,

(Tom Keats) said:

Snap-On boot soles are horrible on slippery surfaces
like ice. I guess they're meant for indoors, like
concrete warehouse floors. Maybe Kodiaks would be better
for my purposes.

I would generally switch to lug soled, steel toed gum-boots when
dealing with any type of moisture greater than ankle depth. Gotta
watch for punctures though or you'll be miserable the rest of the day.

The donor bike got stripped of its festive bling bling and fixed with
a good polo gear. It's doing snow service now. Maybe I'll buy it some
horny new tires with some grip. The polo bike is temporarily
out-of-service with bad crank problems so this one may end up playing
polo for a while.
--
zk

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Claire Petersky said:

You guys got the snow, but we didn't. Just a light dusting last night,

now

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

all melted.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping to go with the whole family on a short club ride.

The

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

only problem is "ice/snow cancels". If it's snowy, we wouldn't ride

anyway,

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

but if it's just ice, we'll all be disappointed.

It's tomorrow now. I thought I heard mention
on the TV of Seattle getting snow, but I was
in the other room stuffing my rear tire bead
back onto the rim hook.

So, how'd it go? Do I get to celebrate that
you got to ride, or is it comiseration time?

Anyhow, I just got a little (very little) riding
in, myself -- my first tentative attempt at ice
biking, up & down the back lanes. I didn't wipe
out, but I didn't like it much, either. I miss my
toeclips, and I caught myself instinctively going
for the front brake. And the low saddle feels
funny. Then, with the low tire pressure there's
the worry of the bead rolling off the rim. So now
I'm mentally assimilating the experience, and then
I'll check the tires and go out and have another
stab at it. Maybe I'll make it to the laundromat
after all.

--

i for one was disappointed about the lack of snow here. based on the weather
predictions last week i got some of those nashbar studdeds and was looking
forward to trying them out. now there's nothing during the day so i used the
road bike w/o studs and then on the way home there's this sheen of ice, very
tricky. about the worst conditions are those you can't predict, like when
the temp keeps hovering around 32! tonight ill catch the bus, boo.
-alan

Zoot Katz said:

This is the dicey time when it's melting during the day and freezing
at night. Most major routes are clear and dry. Side streets are great
when they're of compacted snow. The un-studded tires are rideable in
most situations where my slicks suck. I might have to look at getting
a treaded HP MTB tire. Slush left where scuds get themselves un-stuck
is the ugliest stuff for pedalling through.

Yeah I hear ya!

These are the conditions right now. I went to our town
library yesterday afternoon and evening to do some
volunteer work. Took the bike with the mixed knobby
front/Avocet Cross rear and really wished I'd taken
the studded knobbies.

Conditions exactly as you describe above. Brown slushy
stuff overlaying "bumps" of compacted snow. Front and
rear ends "S-ing" about the entire ride. Foot dabs the
entire way. Things had frozen up a bit on the way home
leading to actual slight improvement in riding conditions.

Fortunately only about 3 miles each way!

I'll be on studded knobbies for today's commute. More
snow followed by ice this afternoon and through tomorrow.
Looks like pedaling conditions aren't going to be changing
any time soon!

SMH

Tom Keats said:

I note the riding-on-ice experts advise to only use
the rear brake. During my forthcoming experiments
I intend to heed that advice, using a light hand and
avoiding locking. Maybe doing a bunch of jake-braking,
too.

An 'ice fixie' (if there is such a thing) would
already have a rear brake built-in anyway --
hand brakes or no.

I have ridden my fixed gear bike for several Boston winters now. I use
Nokian (700c x 35) "Hakkapelitta" tires. These have a fairly deep tread
for snow and a double row (106/tire) of carbide studs for ice. This
bike has both a front & rear rim brake.

I don't find that the fixed gear is easier to ride on slippery
surfaces. When things are really slick, I think it's easier to control
skidding when not pedaling. The drivetrain does provide some feedback
on slip, but so does a conventional drivetrain, as do brakes. The main
benefit of the fixed gear is that derailers often clog up with snow and
shifting suffers.

The main reason for rear braking with slippery surfaces is that rear
wheel skids are recoverable while front ones usually aren't.
Additionally, since braking force may be severely limited in those
conditions, you don't have the weight transfer to the front which makes
the rear brake ineffective.

Braking on winter slick surfaces is a lot like MTB braking on loose
surfaces. To get maximum braking force you need to apply both brakes,
but you have to be very careful not to lock the front. WInter road
riding is also a lot like MTB riding in the variety of surfaces you
encounter. I don't think there is a single ideal tire for all
conditions. Sometimes a narrower tire beats a wide one, other times,
the opposite is true. Some treads pack snow worse than others, but in
general, deeply treaded tires are the way to go. Studs are the only
thing that works on ice, but they work best on smooth ice that has no
snow cover. On the road, they are perfect for "black ice".

In article <[email hidden]>,

Peter Cole said:

Braking on winter slick surfaces is a lot like MTB braking on loose
surfaces. To get maximum braking force you need to apply both brakes,
but you have to be very careful not to lock the front. WInter road
riding is also a lot like MTB riding in the variety of surfaces you
encounter.

Well, I'm satisfied that simply riding on ice & snow is
quite do-able. But I've learned that utility riding with
a top/rear-heavy load of cargo in such conditions is a
horse of a different feather, and maintaining the fore-&-aft
balance of a loaded bike, without consistent traction, and
with the weighted rear tire occasionally plunging down into
soft spots, is too much of a constant struggle. Braking
with a top/rear-heavy load is pretty skookum, too.

Quoted message said:

I don't think there is a single ideal tire for all
conditions. Sometimes a narrower tire beats a wide one, other times,
the opposite is true. Some treads pack snow worse than others, but in
general, deeply treaded tires are the way to go. Studs are the only
thing that works on ice, but they work best on smooth ice that has no
snow cover. On the road, they are perfect for "black ice".

I note on the IceBike site they also recommend more open
tread patterns that let accumulated snow fall out.

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

[email hidden] (Tom Keats) wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Today I got to take the bus to
a site at 38th & Dunbar.

Hey I live on 34th between Dunbar and Highbury....you coulda spitted on
me. I didn't commute today either as my son is taking the bus to work
and will likely be doing so foe the balance of the week if the weather
forecast proves true. Bummer.