First Proper Snow Commute

graeme_s-2

Thought I'd resurrect this thread. I've been merrily riding through the snow in my marathon winters. Took me 20 minutes to ride home during Friday afternoon's snowmageddon vs my mate who spent 2 hours driving home!

I've decided to try and replace my missing studs. I've just spent an hour in the garage, after about 10 minutes I got one in, and that was it, the next 50 minutes were entirely fruitless.

To those who have done this successfully, I need some advice please! I fully deflated the tyre and left it on the rim. I used my leatherman needle nosed pliers, but I'm thinking buying a pair of mole grips might be the way forwards?

Kieran_Burns

Maybe bringing the tyre into the house? It'll be warm in there and the rubber softer...

DrLex

Best technique I found was to pinch the tyre to elongate the hole and then use pliers to push in stud like a button into a buttonhole, then twisting to seat properly. Central ones easier than the shoulder ones; thankfully 5:1 ratio in my case.
Not lost any in the last week; think bedding-in is complete.

graeme_s-2

The pinch to elongate sounds good. I think the one I got in was central and the one that defeated me was a shoulder stud. Might try giving them a blast with a hair dryer to warm them up a bit. They were so cold I was chipping snow off them to check for missing studs

Bordersroadie

Finally we get a proper dumping of snow, about 9 inches deep so far and still snowing.

graeme_s-2

I had trouble with the conditions yesterday. There was compacted snow that would turn to slush when pressure was applied, so while cycling over that it would collapse randomly under my wheels and send the bike off in random directions. There were also some bits where there was fresh powdery snow on top of frozen slush and I found that very difficult to ride on as well. Meant I walked-pushed a couple of sections of my commute.

This morning everything had just frozen solid and my tyres coped much better. On the downside my rear dérailleur was frozen in 4th or 5th (of 8) gear so I just had to single speed it into work. A colleague has a can of WD40, so I'm going to sling some hot water over it later and give it a blast with the WD, then oil it when I get home.

meanredspider

Graeme_S wrote:

I fully deflated the tyre

Personally, I think this is where you went wrong. I never deflated the tyre and equally never had an issue getting studs back in - that's not to say one equals the other but I think a stretched and firm tyre would be easier to push a stud back into.

meanredspider

A question I have for anybody else running Spikers in particular (though maybe others could comment)

Is it me, or is it easier to cycle on a thin covering of snow? I don't know if it's psychological because it's a lot quieter or whether the rolling resistance of the knobbly tyres is actually reduced. Thoughts?

graeme_s-2

meanredspider wrote:

Graeme_S wrote:

I fully deflated the tyre

Personally, I think this is where you went wrong. I never deflated the tyre and equally never had an issue getting studs back in - that's not to say one equals the other but I think a stretched and firm tyre would be easier to push a stud back into.

Right - I'll give it a go while they're still inflated this evening, then I'll try the deflate and pinch technique if that doesn't work. Also going to give the tyre a quick blast with a hair dryer to warm the rubber up a bit. Will report back!

gtvlusso

Light dusting of snow last night in Bristol;

Traffic chaos this moring on my street and allot of the backstreets have compressed snow and ice still - the cyclepath was just powder snow in places too....Great fun on the MTB.

Took an hour to do 10 miles though.

Fat tyres rule!

gbsahne001

-8 this morning, and for a while the bike was a single speed, as the gear cables had frozen. Slow puncture on the back tyre as well, which I should really fix.

Paul E

Just -2 where I was, had to change my route slightly as the minor roads which are hills near me were all compacted ice and snow, only one minor bit along tooley street where the bike lane was snow but that was it, it certainly thinned out the fair weather bikers. On a side note it's my first proper commute after picking up a chest infection and I didn't cough my guts up and had decent speed.

mudcovered

meanredspider wrote:

A question I have for anybody else running Spikers in particular (though maybe others could comment)

Is it me, or is it easier to cycle on a thin covering of snow? I don't know if it's psychological because it's a lot quieter or whether the rolling resistance of the knobbly tyres is actually reduced. Thoughts?

I find the same thing with my snow studs. A loose snow layer over the top of the compacted frozen stuff seems to improve the traction and make things a little bit less effort. Noticed it a lot today where there has been another light fall over the top of the now frozen and rutted slush.

Mike

gbsahne001

gbsahne wrote:

-8 this morning, and for a while the bike was a single speed, as the gear cables had frozen. Slow puncture on the back tyre as well, which I should really fix.

might be time for a new tube