Warmer Than I Expected, This Morning

The weather-guessers predicted sub-zero (F) temperatures for last night/this morning. So, 7 degrees above seemed relatively balmy by comparison.

We had a small ice/snow storm, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, which left the roads in an interesting condition. Two inches of squeaky snow (low-moisture-content snow squeaks under compression, for some reason) was lying on top of about an inch of very solid ice.

Wednesday, I had no problem riding on it. Yesterday, however, I did take a dive as I approached the intersection of Dahlia and Third. Even though I never used the brakes (an advantage of fixed-gear riding in slick conditions), there was patch of ice there that even my studded tires could not overcome. As soon as I stoped pedaling forward, the tires lost their grip and the front end washed out, dumping me face-first onto the frozen road.

I'm glad the sun was not yet up. I can only find comfort in hoping that it was dark enough that no one could see my rather ungraceful landing.

No harm done, I continued on my way.

This morning, I was uber careful to avoid that spot, and managed to stay upright all the way here, adding to the warm and fuzzy aspect of the ride.

I've rather enjoyed having an excuse to ride even slower than normal. Snow appeals to my inner laziness!

(Posted via Crackberry)

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Short-Lived Snow Event

As often happens, here in Denver, we have had a couple of days with bright sunshine and temps in the upper 50s/lower 60s on the heels of a snowstorm. The two feet of snow doesn't stand much of a chance, under those conditions. The roads are virtually clear, with just a few snowy or icy spots left in shady areas.

The commute should be a bit less of a challenge, tomorrow, than it was on Thursday.

In honor of our first good snow of the season, I drew this in my Moleskine sketchbook, the other day:

Snowflakes and people...no two are exactly alike.

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More Cold Weather Stuff

Well, I threw some v-brakes on the Pink Snowball and rode it around for a while. Even with 25 psi in the tires, it grips the snow rather well. I need to get some tubular glue and cement one bead of each tire to the rim so that I can drop the psi to 10 or 12 and go try riding offroad with it. (Won't be able to go until after Christmas, anyway, since I'm going to Tennessee, next Saturday. So, no particular hurry, I suppose).

The roads are thawing, here in Denver. Temps are in the 30's, officially, but the thermometer on my front porch is reading 53 F, in the sun. This presents a quandary for me, commute-wise.

The roads are going to be mostly free of snow on the main drags, tomorrow morning, but a lot of the side streets are going to have large patches of re-frozen meltwater stretching across them. That means that the chains are going to be largely unecessary and annoying, but there will be places I wish I had them.

I switched out to the spare wheels and tire, without chains, when I got home from the coffee shop. I hope that I can just be careful and avoid any unpleasantness, tomorrow morning. I just can't face pushing those noisy, bumpy chains across the clear pavement any more than I have done the past couple of days.

I would take the pink bike, with the big tires, but I don't have a rack on it. And, I don't feel like putting one on, today.

So, fingers crossed.

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Snow Chains vs. Snow Wheels

Well, I rode to work with the snow chains, today. I was quite glad to have them on the way in. The roads were mostly snowpacked. with some icy stretches, and my speed was quite a bit slower than normal. But, I don't really get in a hurry when riding in the snow, anyway.

Good thing, too. About two and a half miles from work, I noticed that the rear tire was going soft.

"Great", I thought, "just what I wanted."

Any flat on a commute is annoying (and I speak from experience, of course). But, the snow chains make a flat a nightmarish experience. Each chain requires about 10 minutes of wrestling/tugging/cursing to install when you are in a well-lit shop area with all of your tools. The thought of trying to remove and replace a tube on the side of the road, in the dark, at 18 degrees F was not appealing.

So, I broke out the frame pump and aired the tire up, hoping that it would get me to work. It not only did that, but the tire stayed aired up and I rode home on the same tube, tonight.

I figure the liquid sealer in the tube got too cold and thick to work, and I either reopened a previously plugged hole (likely) or picked up a thorn in the snow (not bloody likely), and the thickened sealant just couldn't plug the leak. Once the bike was in the building, at work, and warmed up, it probably allowed the sealant to work.

Either way, I didn't have to actually replace the tube. For that, I am thankful.

Of course, on the way home after a sunny day, a good bit of my route was snow-free. Riding with the snow chains on dry pavement is sort of like riding on the rumblestrips along the side of the highway. After a while, I began to look forward to the snowy stretches. This made me think of snow tires, both the studded variety and the extra-wide/low-pressure variety. Either would make flat repairs more reasonable.

Coincidentally, when I got home these were in a box on my back porch:

They are SnowCat 41mm wide rims laced to LX hubs. I got them off of eBay for about the same amount as the last listed price for a pair of the rims, alone. Add in the fact that the rims are no longer available, and it becomes an even better deal. The wide rims give a mountain bike tire a wide footprint, and allow you to run air pressure as low as 8 to 10 psi on the snow.

I plan on using these on the Pink Bike to build up a snow bike (these rims were used on a lot of Iditabike race bikes). Depending on how well it works, I might just use that as my snowy-day bike, and forego the teeth-rattling chains on the tires.

Stay tuned.

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