Originally Posted by
Closed Office
Thank you. I've never used studs either and don't want to. It makes sense to me, but certainly isn't the consensus. I can make adjustments in my route or speed on the bad days. I hit the road once or twice a winter, but usually at a slow speed under difficult conditions. That's usually ice that I don't see under snow.
I appreciate that one. My worst accident had about a half second warning before a crash. I didn't know what to do, so didn't do anything. After it really did seem like the best thing to do.
I suspect that Calgary's winters are a little more like Denver winters than like east coast (Canada or US) winters. Brief, intense snowstorms followed by cold and/or dry conditions. You guys have chinook winds like Denver and I assume that even it's cold, the snow disappears. We call the chinooks 'snow eaters' because the snow just disappears. It's actually a phenomena known as sublimation where the snow goes from solid to vapor without becoming liquid. Under those conditions, we (and you, probably) watch our snow piles go away. I bet you guys have dry powdery snow with a low moisture content, too.
To give others an appreciation for what chinook winds can do, we had a storm here in Denver in 2003. Dumped 29" of snow over two days (starting on a Tuesday). By Friday, you couldn't have told that it had snowed at all. We didn't even have that much water running off it even though the stuff was snowcrete.
I would suggest a knobbed tire in snow, however. It does grab the snow better than a smooth tire and provides a little control for snow...which can be a lot of fun to ride in
