Winter weather advisory bike ride

[us56456712]

Today I went for a 17 mile ride in a winter weather advisory. Late in the ride it got dark and it started to snow harder. This type of riding is the most challenging snow riding. The snow was almost too deep to ride in and 33F temperatures make for riding in mush. Your studded tires don't help in these conditions as there is no ice to bite into, just mush, which is just below slush on the temperature continuum. Slush is easy to ride in. I thought it might be easier riding on the rim ice on L. Superior but the snow was so deep that the studs couldn't penetrate through it and the snow kept sliding from under my tires toward the Lake. Tomorrow it will be unridable as I will have to wait for the snow plows to clear the bike path and roads. 95% of my ride was on the city bike path, which they plow all winter.

I invented a new sport, bicycle ice trials. Click on the pictures to see the videos.


Crossing the Dead River Bridge on the City bike path,


Merry Christmas video card, especially to those that can't have a white christmas. Wait for me to clear the snow off my lens.

 

[metalchewy]

Hmm links dont work in tapatalk. Will try them again in a bit.

Sounds cold, but fun. I remember riding BMX in 24" powder or more than a few times in the mountaim town I grew up in. I Havent tried it this year yet. I would like to go take tin can alley now theres a foot or more snow on it and run the bomber down it.

 

[us56456712]

Hmm links dont work in tapatalk. Will try them again in a bit.

Sounds cold, but fun. I remember riding BMX in 24" powder or more than a few times in the mountain town I grew up in. I Haven't tried it this year yet. I would like to go take tin can alley now theres a foot or more snow on it and run the bomber down it.

Photobucket is getting clunkier and clunkier. Sometimes the vids are jumpy. It took me two days to get the vids to upload to Photobucket. None of my videos will directly upload to Ratrodbikes but my photos will. All my stored movies come up not highlighted when I try to put them on RRB, so I am stuck with Photobucket.

 

[metalchewy]

Photobucket is getting clunkier and clunkier. Sometimes the vids are jumpy. It took me two days to get the vids to upload to Photobucket. None of my videos will directly upload to Ratrodbikes but my photos will. All my stored movies come up not highlighted when I try to put them on RRB, so I am stuck with Photobucket.

I got them to work fine from the web.

Looks brutally fun... keep warm! [emoji621]

 

[RustyGold]

That is some hard core winter riding...feeling a bit guilty for not riding for the last month due to sub 50 degree weather

Jason

 

[us56456712]

That is some hard core winter riding...feeling a bit guilty for not riding for the last month due to sub 50 degree weather

Jason

My winter riding is soft core compared with these local guys. I know these guys. They are 30 to 45 years younger than I am so I am lucky if I happen to ride vintage bikes with them once a year. I can't keep up. Ace bike mechanics and riders. This award winning film has some breaks between sections, but it keeps going. It has the local history of winter off road riding (I was riding 10 speed road bikes on the road in winter before these guys were born but it was not so much for fun as to get somewhere). Then it has a section on riding on the L. Superior Ice shelf in the spring as well as riding the local snow bike trails and a section on how they fabricated a single track snow bike groomer. I think it is interesting. I hope you enjoy it. I rode my fat bike 12.5 miles on the snow today.

 

[horsefarmer]

very cool video. better to click on "vimeo" so you can watch it full screen (on a computer, anyways.)

 

[GuitarlCarl]

Very cool...
I have a couple buds around here who are talking about Fat tire bikes and winter riding. It's intriguing but warm here in my living room.

Carl.

 

[us56456712]

Very cool...
I have a couple buds around here who are talking about Fat tire bikes and winter riding. It's intriguing but warm here in my living room.

Carl.

Send your buds north to here. They won't be sorry, as Gary Fisher said http://www.pinkbike.com/news/the-northern-fatbike-summit.html We have two groomed snow bike trails within 15 miles of my house. The LBS can give them directions and probably find someone to ride with them. If there isn't fresh snow the riding on these trails is pretty easy, no steep hills but some long uphill grades. I only use the bottom 3 gears. It's harder as far as effort than regular mountain bikeing but really fun. Wednesday night we have group rides at different ability levels. We all have lights with a backup light. We love when people come from Georgia or Detroit or from England to ride with us. People find us through friends and social media. NTN, http://www.noquetrails.org/ and RAMBA, https://www.facebook.com/rangemountainbikeclub/ are the two local clubs that have snow bike trails.

 

[us56456712]

Well, here is one for the books. I rode my studded tire ice bike to our Liars Club Friday lunch. It was real icy. It's only a 5 mile round trip. I checked my cell phone for the temperature. It said it was 34F. So I dressed appropriately, for 34F, and off I went. My wife said, as I left, "it is really cold out": I said "nah cell phone says it's 34F". Wah! by 3 blocks I couldn't shut my eyes and my thumbs and face were frozen stiff. To boot I had a stiff headwind. I got to lunch and as I walked in the door they said "take it easy, the ambulance from the psych ward is on the way". They didn't believe me when I told them my cell phone said it was 34F so I showed them. Turned out that was for December 22, 2016. In self defense I have only one app, map my ride, and I don't know my cell phone number. All I use the phone for is to calculate my distances. I don't know why it even tells me the time and temperature, but that is on the screen and I believed it. They updated it for me and it was -5F with a wind chill of -15. As I sat in the restaurant warming up the cold from my shoes slowly permeated my feet and within 5 minutes they were frozen too; delayed reaction. The moral of the story is that if you believe anything that digital technology tells you then you are a fool and you are listening to one now.

 

[horsefarmer]

2 hours a day minimum doing chores (feeding animals, filling stock tanks, bringing in wood. Pretty darn cold last couple of days. Dusted off my 36 year old USAF parka and wore long underwear and insulated jeans! I had to put air in my wife's cars tires yesterday, in seconds my bare fingers froze and I could not grip the valve cover cap to put it back on! Be careful out there!

 

[us56456712]

2 hours a day minimum doing chores (feeding animals, filling stock tanks, bringing in wood. Pretty darn cold last couple of days. Dusted off my 36 year old USAF parka and wore long underwear and insulated jeans! I had to put air in my wife's cars tires yesterday, in seconds my bare fingers froze and I could not grip the valve cover cap to put it back on! be careful ot there!

There is a group fat bike ride tomorrow at 10 AM on the North Trails. It is going to be -15F tonight and a high of +5F tomorrow with brisk winds. I am not going. I know there will be about 10 people at that ride. You can freeze your fingers or toes and be far in the woods. At these temperatures my electric gloves can't keep up. I still have to make some hand covers for the handlebars. The temperature will start to get more average on Sunday. I'll have to get my magnetic velo machine out of the closet and set up a bike on it. Brrrr

 

[us56456712]

The winter advisories for the last several days have been nonexistent with temperatures 20 degrees above average. Our average is 18.8F for this time of year and we have been having high 30s to 40F. We have a lot of treacherous mush on top of ice and a lot of large puddles. I got soaked riding today, even my wallet and that's with fenders. At least I have been riding my studded ice tire mountain bike daily. The snow bike trails have been bad except for a few nights when it froze up. This afternoon and tomorrow we will be under a winter weather advisory. This is a weird winter weather advisory for us, dense fog and rain, then later in the week freezing rain. Does not bode well for the snow bike trails. Easy to keep warm riding when it is 38F.

 

[horsefarmer]

South of @us56456712 a ways (WI / MI border). It's been warm (above freezing) but uber crappy. No sun or wind to speak of, so it's just fog, slush, and ice with standing water on top. Fog may go away this afternoon and I may attempt a ride then....

 

[metalchewy]

Chain and 4x4 advisories on the passes to the west of here.

 

[us56456712]

I have been riding on the street and bike path almost all of January as we have had a record warm spell. It has never been this warm for this long in January, almost 20F above the average. It was above 32F for over a week, including the night time low. Yellow birches and beech trees are confused and budding out. Our average January temperature this year has been the same as the long term average for the end of March. It feels and looks like St Patrick's Day. It is a little cooler today and if we get a little snow and the groomer comes out I could start riding the fat bike on the trails. Right now it is bad for skiing, snowmobiling, snow showing and most other winter sports. Ice fishing on inland lakes is good if they are deep enough. There is only water up to your ankles on top of the inland lake ice. No ice to speak of on Lake Superior.

 

[horsefarmer]

Took my Raleigh bike out for a test ride the other day.

Many days hovering around freezing, but fog and clouds meant no sun so snow turned to ice with standing water on top.

 

[Starnger]

Guys, have anyone tried to ride over snow and ice on BOA-G? How is it? Not too slippery?

 

[us56456712]

Guys, have anyone tried to ride over snow and ice on BOA-G? How is it? Not too slippery?

BOA-G will work fine but you don't need wider tires for street riding. I always used 2.35s on my bike and they were very hard to ride in 1/2 inch or less (even bare pavement) of loose snow. You need really wide tires for any improvement riding on snow over anything narrower, at least 3.8 with 4 pounds of pressure. All other narrow tires seem to ride the same on snow as far as safety goes. This year I went to 1.9 front and 2.0 rear and it is much much easier to pedal, but still way harder than in the summer. The narrower tires are no different then the 2.35s as far as sliding or spinning for town riding, but the narrower tires really make a difference in ease of peddling. Both the 2.35s and the narrower tires are studded. Studs are the way to go but there is a learning curve. I haven't fallen on the road or bike trail in two years. I used to fall a lot where there is new snow over ice as the studs don't penetrate to the ice to get a grip. There are also places where the bike path is bare from the sun hitting the snow and ice and the melted water runs down hill to settle in a spot where the sun doesn't hit and suddenly you have a curve with ice with water on it, you can go down easily and you learn to slow down and look for this. Also, if you get a situation where everything melted for a day and then froze and you have lumpy ice everywhere that has a lot of moisture trapped in it; you'r going down even with studs. I wear knee and elbow pads and try to bail off a crashing bike onto my knees and elbows. You get a sore back as you look like a cobra snake ready to strike but you are sliding along. I think the BOA-G tire will work, even without studs if you dress for a crash, and are careful. We have a lot of winter riders here who use old mountain bikes with standard tires and they do fine. The salt ruins the bike, even one ride will mess up your chain. I douse my chain and everything else with penetrating oil after every second ride and still my chain has kinks where it sat on the rear derailleur every time I ride. Takes a block for it to remove the kinks. You will have an occasional problem shifting, even with oil. Sometimes water gets in the shifting mechanism and it gets hard to lever and the derailleurs get sluggish from ice in the joints. This is my second winter on this bike and I can't turn any of the spoke nipples, even though I was soaking them. Now I don't bother with the spokes, the oil gets on the rims or discs and screws up stopping. I'll at least need replacement wheels for next winter. I usually throw the whole bike out after 3 years as nothing really works and you can get another one cheaper than repairing it. I personally wouldn't ride on any bike or part, including any tire that wasn't black that I was going to use in the summer and wanted to look nice.

 

[Starnger]

Thank you, that's a good advice. My interest was basically if i should have an extra 2nd winter tire kit, if i decide to replace the ones i have now with BOA-G, and now the answer is clearly yes, since i was planning to get creme ones.