This mornings commute was nice and challenging. The car tracks made it hard because of the track rails. Some of the tracks were right to the curb making for my front end of the bike to cut back and forth rather unwillingly . Once I got on Iron Horse bike path by State Farm all was nice and smooth. I forgot to let some air out of the front for the ride back.
On the way back the fallen snow was getting hard but it was the car tracks that made it almost impossible to keep straight. Some streets were very hard to maneuver around. I even had to use the sidewalks in some areas. Once I got home I remembered that I failed to tack some of the air out of the front. No big deal.  The commute did take the stress off work.
Wed I think I will takd the van.

To think that the Tommenator fellow commuter road in today.  It was too much for me. He said that he had to use the MTB today.  The car wheels channels in the snow make it hard to keep the bike up. I just can’t wait when the snow turns to slush.

Cheers for Tominator!

Yes, good job Tommenator! I found it hard to ride around the block, a few times
yesterday. I do belive I’m going to go the Studded tire, route, next year. From
what Oldslacker has written, it seems the way to go. I rode my MTB bike yesterday
with 35 pounds of air in the tires, got around, but the snow would sallow my tires, and
stop me. I than rode one of my skinny tire, bikes 700X23, and it seems, that the skinny
tires, far much better, it the kind os snow, we had.
I remeber riding back and forth to the GM plant in Morine, on a bike with 27X11/4 tires
for many winters, and not having, any problems, even going up and down the hill, by
Kettering Hospital. So I might try studs, or just buy a old 80’s bike with skinny tires?
Well going to ride to Meijer, need coffee,or I’ll go crazy. If your out riding be careful.

With fat tires, you must push down the whole width of snow in front of the tire.  That takes a lot of energy.  The deeper the snow, the more difficult it becomes.  Skinny tires, on the other hand have much less to push out of the way.  On shallow snow, MTBs have the traction advantage, especially if they have knobbies.  The tread digs into the snow and grips.  On hardpacked snow or glaze ice, there is no difference.  Studs are good for that. 

About 28 years ago or so, when I lived in NW Illinois (Savanna) I considered making studded tires to ride out to my favorite ice fishing spot, but never got around to it.  It would take an awfully lot of screws run from the inside and would also need a liner so the screw heads wouldn’t pinch the tube and leave one stranded 2 miles out on the ice.  Now, you can buy studded tires like Oldshacker is now using and providing us good evaluations.

After shovelling snow for 6 hours yesterday, I was in no mood to test my ability to ride in 7 inches of powder on top of an inch of glazed over sleet.  Still stiff today!

The thing with the skinny tires for me is that on fresh snow they got me to and from work for many years. Using the bike path from Kettering Iron Horse to downtown Dayton Creakside, Mad River and GMVR at RiverScape. At that time I was using a Trek 1000C Cross bike with 700X28 with small tread. The compound was all weather and most of the time worked very well on the ice packed conditions. The reason I think was that that I was on the bike path at 5 Am and it was cold and dry. Then on the way home there was the streets. The only problem like there is now is that the plows block the corners and each ramp to the paths.
It appears that we all weather cyclists can make do with any kind of tires on any kind of bike. Some call us nuts no matter what we do. 

Oldshacker - 31 January 2009 08:53 PM

Some call us nuts no matter what we do. 

How true!

Now that I have time. It was time for me to clean my chain. The road salt and mud made for a real mess. A few links were starting to freeze up indicating a missed op to oil them up when needed. I found it easy to use oil in my chain cleaner unit. A stainless steel brush did good with all the bolt heads on the bike. The crank and hubs still had a good seal of grease from a clean out I did a few months ago.
My work is now having us all participating in a mandatory health screening and if the numbers are bad your out! So you will see me do some-more after work cycling since I do not have to go downtown. I might add on a few more miles on to the commute to and from.  The bad news is that now that I ride hard on the recumbent I might have to take out my road bike and see if I can put some sprinting in the mix for the cummute.

I take a old section of a bath wash rag, spray it with WD40, than run the chain thur it
everytime, I ride in rain or salty conditions, and relube each week with chain lube.
I’m surprised they( your work place) can let you go, for having, bad numbers on
health test? When did this start? I know I see a lot of overweight people walking from
there cars, into a work place. It seems that they would, maybe try and give the people
a incentive, ($$$$) to lose that weight,or deal with other health problems. before they
let them go? Or offer a redued rate at a health club.
I know some of the part time jobs I have had since I retired, they don’t even do a drug
test, and that was with the every one so far. Even back in the 60’s when I went to work
for GM, you at lease had to do a pee test. “Getting down off soap box”
Well time to go for a ride, looks like a sunny day.Every one be safe and have a great
day.

What can I say the owner of the co is on a heath kick now. Insurance is high.

I used to be a wd40 kind of guy but started to find other lubes that do wonders. My chain is actually two full size changes put together, thus the angling or swivelling motion does not occur as mush as an upright bike chain.
The winter environments tends to take advantage and rust appears more when the bike is at rest for 48 hours or more. The health of the chain does better when it is cleaned frequently when exposed in winter conditions. I am truly lazy sometimes and tend neglect my chain more in the cold. Now that I have the studded tires on I do notice a lot more of the larger particles of crud on the chain and bike.

On another subject, I did change my route to work that takes me through Indian Ripple Park to Powhattan Place to Vale and County Line Rd. Nice and quite and nice hill work. The bad news is that it is still a short commute.