Exercise R Us

Question:

: I guess that most of the people replying here aren’t really ridden : at the snow time .. (Or have seen winter at all : Go for Nokia Extremes !! Those have over 300 studs and have very good : friction on both snow and ice. I bet that those are among the best to : buy. (At least those tires come from country that has a real winter : and where people DO ride on the snow and ice. Btw where you could : find a place with snow and without ice !?!?) Well, in Northern Wisconsin (USA) lake effect snow (from Lake Superior) is a daily occurrence.  Winter temperatures often hit -40, and daily hi temps seldom get above 15F (-9C).  Since it is always so cold, the snow never melts and ice never forms.  Sure, many roads develop a permanent layer of hard pack snow which is pretty slippery, but it isn’t glare ice. Even when salt is applied to roads, there isn’t enough melting to lead to later ice formation (instead, the water goes directly from a solid to gaseous state).  I’ve found that ice is really more of a problem in warmer locations (relatively speaking, of course . Justen PS…  back to the original topic, sort of… On the road, I really prefer slick tires.  They can "cut" thru the snow and hit the pavement better than wide knobbies.  Knobbies tend to "float" in the snow, much like in deep sand.  Off-road, OTOH, the fatter the better, as one can often ride on top of the hard crust of snowmobile trails.

Response:

I have a set of Nokia Extremes which I use for ice riding beside Lake Ontario.  I run them at around 15lbs, but you still have to be carefull not to slide out.  I’ve used them for around two years and only lost a couple of studs (I pound pavement to get to the lake).  They are so so in snow on a normal width rim, with a Snow Cat rim they would rock!

Response:

->: Sounds interesting (I’m not the original requestor) But studs in general.. ->: are they ok/safe, if , say, I don’t have much time to ride in the winter but ->: I still ride my bike to class?  It’s not always sheet ice, but this campus ->: isn’t always plowed, so the trip to class takes me through packed snow, ice ->: slush, and pavement. A lot of the more crowded areas are down to the pavement ->: by lunchtime.. will this ruin my studs; or will the studs ruin the precious ->: brickwork around here? ->Studs are OK ! Studs aren’t really sharp needles and they come only ->millimeters off from the surface of the tyre. So no need to worry about ->hurting someone. Hmm.. Well, I think the original poster’s concern was more with chewing up the brickwork on campus, than in hurting a pedestrian. And his concern is well placed – studs on automobiles do cause a tremendous amount of wear on road surfaces, especially when driven on dry roads. Granted, a rider on a bicycle has nowhere near the weight or the horsepower of an automobile, but its probably still not a good idea to go riding up and down the brick walks of your campus on dry days if you can help it. Frankly, I don’t think you really need studs for commuting on a bike in the winter, unless you live in a really hairy climate, have big hills to negotiate, or still want to do singletrack. A decent pair of tires (even slicks – the more rubber on the road the better) will work fine, especially if you run them with a bit lower pressure to get more rubber on the ground. I’ve commuted year-round for the past 6 years or so in all kinds of weather in Colorado and Montana, and have never had much of problem riding on regular, slick road tires (first 700c on an old road bike, more lately Ritchy Tom Slick’s on a Bridgestone XO-2). My advice, worry less about traction for your bike and more about traction for the automobiles driving nearby – they’re the *real* threat in nasty weather. – Nick FYI, this should really be in rec.bikes.soc or .misc, since it’s explicitly about riding on paved surfaces and has nothing to do with off-road riding at all. — Nick Wilde                            

Response:

I guess that most of the people replying here aren’t really ridden at the snow time .. (Or have seen winter at all Go for Nokia Extremes !! Those have over 300 studs and have very good friction on both snow and ice. I bet that those are among the best to buy. (At least those tires come from country that has a real winter and where people DO ride on the snow and ice. Btw where you could find a place with snow and without ice !?!?) — Osoite: Panu Brodkin                          "Erehtyyh