The Chainlink

First big snow, Jan 2010-- how's everyone getting around in this stuff?

I realized quickly I needed to stay out of the car tire spoors as I could barely track in them-- slippin' and a slidin'. Kept to the undisturbed and less disturbed snow, with a few plowed and virgin sidewalk stretches. Only one short jaunt on a main street-- cleared/salted/wet, but car traffic seemed like it was moving at highway speeds.
Evening commute awaits . . .

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fun on my 29er, its like mountain biking in the city. yeeee haw!
What kind of tires, Tim? Are you riding on pavement?
Carefully. :)

Seriously, I put my knobbies (700x42c) back on my Gary Fisher and carefully navigating either in a car track or next to it worked well for coming to work up Clark to Evanston today.

The trip home remains to be experienced.
I think straight knobbies would be the way to go today, and I'm starting to think they may be best in all winter conditions. The tires I have now are extremely wide, mostly smooth on the mating surface with somewhat non-aggressive teeth on the edges-- I made it across a boulevard parkway with deep virgin snow easily, but wherever there was disturbed snow I ended up bailing. Walked it probably 50% of the way home.
Chocolate Mousse, I like that.
We need to get a key to different snow/slush types up on the bikewinter site so we can have a unified lingo . . .

Brian Kennedy said:
The chocolate mousse stuff is a pain in the butt. I did have to hit the sidewalk on stretches of neighborhood roads where it was just a maze of car tracks in the snow. Major streets (Northwest, Talcott, Higgins) are all plowed and salted. Neighborhood streets are untouched by salt at this point by me. I did get a lot of practice on my technique tonight, which was a lot of fun!
Come up to Evanston if you want to work on technique. Have fun trying to stay up on pretty much any side street. Sherman and Custer would've been better off unplowed tonight.

Brian Kennedy said:
The chocolate mousse stuff is a pain in the butt. I did have to hit the sidewalk on stretches of neighborhood roads where it was just a maze of car tracks in the snow. Major streets (Northwest, Talcott, Higgins) are all plowed and salted. Neighborhood streets are untouched by salt at this point by me. I did get a lot of practice on my technique tonight, which was a lot of fun!
still riding on 23c's



So...this is what my bike looks like after 20.6 miles today...I look slightly better....

I now have a better understanding of the term "Ridd'n Hard and Put Away Wet".

I have to wait for it to thaw to replace one broken spoke in the back that I know of so far. The sideways force on the tires in the snow ruts are hell on my back tire (that and I'm not a little guy either). Other than the spokes I didnt encounter any other problems mechanically except some delayed braking. I thought for sure I wouldnt be able to shift before long but It held up all day.
I expected at least one irate driver today but to my suprise I did not encounter any problems with the cars.
I rode home about 6:30 pm. Across the Loop I encountered a little of Brian's "chocolate mousse," but was in relatively clean powder once I hit the Lake Front Path and started heading south. There were a couple of ice patches that made me almost stop and let some air out of my tires, but I generally had no problems.

I just this week put the Schwalbe Marathon Winter tires on, and I am loving them. They are noticably better in snow than were the studded Nokian A10's I was riding earlier this winter, and still seem to grip really well on ice. While the tread these things have seems to work real well in the snow (at least the snow we had today), I still had pretty good rolling resistance. Certainly, these things rolled a bajillion times better than full knobbies.
Proud to say no wipeouts today! ...unlike the last snowfall. Even with a crock pot in tow, it wasn't too terrible. Only had to walk down a few side streets that haven't seen the plows yet. Now everyone at work *officially* thinks I'm nutty.....love it.
Same here. You'd have to be a major ass to honk at someone on a bike in this weather though.

Not Nathan Fillion (aka Paul) said:

I expected at least one irate driver today but to my suprise I did not encounter any problems with the cars.

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