North Branch Trail - Condition?

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Permalink Reply by Chitown_Mike on January 21, 2015 at 11:09am

I had a similar revelation this morning, less fun that what you did, but I followed some skinny tired tracks on my commute in, and the downhill right off the Devon/Milwaukee entrance to the NBT had the tire depressions in the snow and then 1/2 way down someone must have taken a spill.  Then it looked like they walked.

I went right down without an issue.  Other than the tires being slower I feel the bike handles better in the snow and ice.  Just need to get a weekend with snow again and go for a fun ride.  Coworker says Palos was really awesome on his fat bike, but without studs he was sliding all over the place.

David Beazley said:

So, as I was flying full speed in the big chainring down a trail of trace snow covering solid ice, holding onto the handlebars for dear life while smiling ear to ear, I got to thinking: you probably don't need studded tires to ride all winter, but if you've got them, they open up a magical new world of insanely badass technical riding.   This is fun.

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Permalink Reply by David Beazley on January 21, 2015 at 11:54am

Honestly, I was probably riding a lot faster than I rightly should have been for the conditions, but I wanted to push things just to see what would happen ;-).   The rough ice surface made the bike bounce all over the place at speed, but the studs have a LOT more grip than I ever would have expected.  Plus, the sound made by all of the crunching ice was pretty cool too.

My main problem is that I've now been actively seeking out lesser used paths that have a lot of ice on them.  There must be something wrong with me. 

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