Originally Posted by
noglider
...My trouble is I ride on a bike path that is not well plowed in the lightly-used section.
Once I'm going, I seem to handle it fine. I sometimes fishtail and go whooooah, but I stay upright. I haven't fallen yet, so I guess that means I'm not going fast enough.
This is my first winter commuting so I’m still figuring out what works. My tires are 26x2in studded tires.
I can’t ride in fresh snow deeper than 5cm (2in). There’s too much rolling resistance I just can’t get any momentum to pedal right after kick-off. I figure if you are able to start peddling through deep fresh snow, you’ll need to be in low gear to keep your wheels moving. I read somewhere that narrow tires will help cut through the snow plus the narrow tires means less contact with the snow making the rolling resistance smaller.
After a few days, the snow will be packed down. You don't want narrow tires anymore. And if it’s through a park, you may get a foot wide path cut by pedestrians. It’ll be bumpy and that’s fine but the hard part is to keep your steering straight so you may be weaving from one side to the other along the foot wide path. Maybe higher gear will help with going straight but I don’t want to risk getting thrown off the bike if it suddenly gets jammed in the snow on the side.