ice and snow

fitch28

just wondering if anyone goes riding in the ice and snow come winter?

If so what tyres do you use? what do you wear? any other issues to be considered?

paul.skibum

there are a range of ice tyres with metal studs - bit over kill in UK though.

nferrar

SNow I just use my normal tyres (Blue Grooves and Advantages atm but sometimes also High Rollers and Mud-X), you can't do much about ice apart from studded tyres but I'd rather stay indoors...

Northwind

Snow's great. Makes old trails new, and it's nice to fall on too Can be very hard work when it's deep though, big fat tyres take a lot of effort to push through the snow. I just use my nevegals same as I do for everything else but I've been told that mud tyres are the best, suppose that makes sense, big treads and narrow profiles.

Ice is... interesting. Some trails go brilliant when it's icy, the muddy wooded bit near mine turns into a crazy skiddy racetrack when it freezes. And the hard ground is so fast, it can be great. But you do need to be careful, especially with snow melt ice- it's so smooth and it coats everything, absolutely deadly. But you can usually see bad stuff. The thing is, an ice crash is usually nasty as you hit the deck so hard and fast, and there's no give in the surface.

Ice tyres would be great I suppose but then only some bits will be properly icy.

nicklouse

Ice and snow two totally different requirements.

and then if you have frozen ground then it can add another level as well.

Steve_F

Glentress tends to get very interesting in the ice due to the number of bikes over the fresh snow then the frozen wheel ruts. I was very happy on the days where there was a bit of fresh snow or a big thaw!

Plenty of thick clothing and as much padding as you have. You are almost guaranteed to fall which is fun in deep snow and painful on ice.

Have a look on You Tube for a video called Snow 2 - it was mental that day!!!

Muirie

I was there at Glentress on that day.

You could park your bike in snow drifts and nofalling at all but also suprisingly grippy on the trail.

Some great photo's of a great day out

.blitz

fitch28 wrote:

just wondering if anyone goes riding in the ice and snow come winter?

It's the best time to go :twisted:

fitch28 wrote:

If so what tyres do you use?

Mud tyres are pretty good in snow.

fitch28 wrote:

what do you wear?

If there's snow and ice around it tends to look colder than it really is, so I don't go overboard on the layers. Had a few problems last year with snow building up inside my crash helmet (pesky vents) and crushed ice in the bite valve but otherwise it was OK.

bomberesque

I commute year round .... except when the freezing rain hits. the icy roads and paths are deadly. If it happened more than once a year I'd probably buy some studded tyres but it's not regular enough where I live (I sounds disaponted don't I? well, I'm not )

riding in snow is tiring but fun



The Belgian Ardennes in "spring"



Riding in the snow can get you views like this. Black Forest last Winter



the same ride. The going can be tough

we don't use different tyres (Maxxis High rollers and Schwalbe Nobby Nics do me year round). for kit I have a goretex windstopper insulated jacket and Endura thermal tights that will take me down to -15 Deg without too much bother. They are expensive pieces if kit though. Decent thermal base layer is well worth it too. Some folks get winter bots but I don't. I wear sealskins with merino liners inside my summer shoes and that does me fine. If it gets wet then I use neoprene overshoes, although I hate them.

fitch28

Just had a look at snow 2 on youtube. looked interesting, lol! def hoping to give riding in the snow a go this year, probably glentress too cos i know it pretty well.

How were the roads getting there that day?

saw a video on youtube a while ago of some guys riding at GT on snow at night have to say it looked a lot of fun!!! dont think there was quite as much snow in that video as snow 2 though!

oh and Steve_F what camera were you using for that video?

RealMan

Here's what you want.

https://www.ktrakcycle.com/index.html

Click "What the heck is KTRAK" at the bottom left, watch the video.

BigStu2

Run Schwalbe Ice Spiker Pros if the ground has frozen, amazing grip and the special rubber compound wont go hard like summer rubber will plus the pros are fairly light unlike the regular ice spikers.
I'll go and ride down to -10 deg C below that its too cold.
If we get a winter of just cold and no snow then its full speed over the frozen lakes, My old spec epic clocked just over 50 kph on the lakes here a few years back. :shock:

RichMTB

Some great stuff here.

Riding in the snow is great fun, can be hard work though.

Ice on the other hand I try and avoid, snow covered boardwalk isn't recommended either as I discovered on a "spring" day at Laggan

As for temperatures as long as you keep moving and there isn't too much wind its generally okay just watch for your gear cables freezing! Although most of us have handy supply of warm liquid to unfreeze stuff if needed!

daniel_owen_uk

Nothing you can do about ice in the UK imo, not enough to put special tyres on and anything else is useless.

I commute year round, but try to avoid it when it's icy, once had a bike dissappear from under me (it was like paul daniels had made it go), 100% nothing you can do about it, and it hurts when you fall.

On that particular day another cyclist came along whilst I was on the deck..... and just rode past without saying a word, ****er.

joshtp

i love riding in the snow, tis awsome fun, i just use my normal tires, which are usual mud tires in the winter. its really fun, and it doesnt hurn when you fall! ice is diff, its mega painfull and slippy, but frosen ground is fast and is (i think) one of the best ways for a trail to be.

mea00csf

Ice is interesting. Was in Wales last new year and the lakes had frozen. some of the trails had huged amounts of standing water on them which had frozen into an icerink. Was fun, you got to spot the "slippy ice" from the "grippy(!!) ice" after a while, slow down and be super smooth over it.
Tho there was one section which was unrideable, we were being guided and were assured that it was a trail usually, it looked like was had been cascading down it and was ice a couple of cm's thick which was over a bouldery section. Even walking this was nearly lethal (particularly when i slipped tried to grab the wall and the dry stone wall half collapsed!! :oops:

ride_whenever

ice is brilliant... weight off the saddle, practice your drifting and get much better bike handling skills. Love it