thielges@uiucdcsb.UUCP (01/07/85)
Speaking of cold weather riding, does anyone have a solution to the snow
traction problem ? A friend of mine suggested to wrap some wire around the
rear wheel. Of course, this would disable the rear brake (it might disable
you if you forget that the wire is there :-). A disabled rear brake may not
be so much of a problem because mine usually freezes after a few weeks of
salt water being squirted through the cable housing. I usually brake with
my feet in snow anyway. Has anyone tried the wire wheel method ?
Bart Thielges
'long live the bat bike'mink@cfa.UUCP (Doug Mink) (01/09/85)
> Speaking of cold weather riding, does anyone have a solution to the snow > traction problem ? This subject has been the subject of numerous discussions in these parts with no firm conclusion. For the past 5 winters I've had a three-mile commute which I've ridden every day all winter on a Raleigh Grand Prix with 27x1-1/4 Specialized Touring tires, and there have been very few times when I've had real traction problems. I do remember one day last winter when there were six inches of rapidly-packed wet snow which made me long for wider tires, but usually thin tires will cut their own tracks. 2.125-inch mountain bike tires tend to ride up on slush and slide around when the treads clog, but I've heard good things about 1.75 tires on mountain bikes in snow. It's not that hard, with a bit of practice, to ride on rough ice, if you keep up your forward momentum. In traffic, though, I stay in the clearest part of the road, usually moving as fast as traffic. Teflon-lined cables fill their housings well enough that snow-clogging of brakes shouldn't be a problem. I test mine continually while riding through snow to keep them available; the amount of momentum a bike and rider have in traffic is more than can be stopped easily with just feet. As to wires, I expect that they would act as little sled runners when you hit ice, skidding the bicycle diagonally, besides causing loss of rear braking which is the safest way to slow down on a slippery surface. -Doug Mink Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astropysics {harvard|genrad|allegra|ihnp4}!wjh12!cfa!mink
jans@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman) (01/10/85)
In article <16200081@uiucdcsb.UUCP> thielges@uiucdcsb.UUCP writes: >Speaking of cold weather riding, does anyone have a solution to the snow >traction problem?... As a kid in Michigan, I took an old tire and pushed thumbtacks through the tread about an inch apart. I then rode the bike around on a small lake where all the kids skated. Great fun, but probably not practical if you wanted to ride on pavement without changing tires! -- :::::: Jan Steinman Box 1000, MS 61-161 (w)503/685-2843 :::::: :::::: tektronix!tekecs!jans Wilsonville, OR 97070 (h)503/657-7703 ::::::
mlf@teddy.UUCP (Matt L. Fichtenbaum) (01/11/85)
>As a kid in Michigan, I took an old tire and pushed thumbtacks through the >tread about an inch apart. He presumably means from the _inside_ of the tire to the _outside_, so that the thumbtack heads are between the tube and the tire, and the points come out to give traction. Any other way is flat wrong! -- Matt Fichtenbaum "Our job is to rescue fires, not put out your cat."
richl@daemon.UUCP (Rick Lindsley) (01/14/85)
I've found that the two best things I could do in winter was to buy "snow tires" just before winter (tires which had a good chain pattern tread) and to DRIVE SLOW. It was not all that difficult to find a chain pattern tire in 26" or 27" (in Wisconsin anyway). The rolling resistance was a bit more but they had a lot less tendency to slide than the parallel treads that are standard on most 26" or 27" tires. Besides, who's looking for speed or low rolling resistance in snow; if you are in snow it is probably because you have to get somewhere rather than because you really are enjoying the sites. Rick Lindsley