Ghazmh

Huge difference over the stock Vanhelga tires. I was able to ride up inclines and over rough ice with authority. That sure footedness came at the cost of speed. 252 carbide studs per tire and an extra .5” of width made slow slower but it was better than wishing about riding. I rode 10 miles on the MCRT and throughout Weston Woods.

rumrunn6

wow, got them on & got them out! impressive! I guess one has to dial back their expectations to suit the vehicle & you're right about comparing it to not being able to ride. so interesting hearing from ppl starting w/ them

rumrunn6

was thinking w/ the storm Sunday nite it might be fun to ride at 2am. while it's still cold enough for snow, before it warms into rain

mr_bill

Quick errand today to grab some sherry to turn yesterday’s onion stock into Saturday’s onion soup.

Sorry, no pics.

-mr. bill

rholland1951

Yum!

rod

Ghazmh

Racked up 22 miles on my Boone 7 cross bike with Schwalbe studded tires. It felt good to get back in the road after 2 weeks off.

rholland1951

Friday afternoon, I took the 1987 GT Karakoram running studded Nokian W240s and rode East.


Temperatures were in the mid-30s, with a 15-25 mph N wind that made for a strenuous and lively ride indeed. Climbing hills with a headwind, climbing hills with a tailwind and getting passed by the odd oak leaf, descending hills with a tailwind in air that seemed strangely quiet, times when a crosswind would try to help steer... everything was harder, or easier, or more surprising than usual on the usual course of hills and traffic. All in all, it was more challenging and more fun than the usual ride over the same course. The studs got used to traverse about 10 feet of on-road ice, left by some plow, and otherwise just served as an insurance policy to keep me from fretting.

I was pleased to see that the Northern Strand Community Trail in Malden was clear and dry.


There were extravagant sunset colors, but I only got one photo of that, taken on Ravine Street in Melrose, as I turned the bike back towards Arlington, the light faded and the traffic picked up the pace. Some people like their roast beef that color, I believe.


Ice in the water bottle for this ride, courtesy of the previous cold night in the garage. Can't leave 'em out there until Spring fixes things.


rod

Ghazmh

Today I went out for only 12 miles. I could’ve kept going but my choice of head covering and face wrap had proven to be a bad call. The orange Balaklava quickly froze over and then I had to choose between allowing my face to freeze or not breathe. Neither was too appealing. I should have worn my 45Nrth balaclava with its face shield that has breathing holes. Besides that one significant issue I was otherwise surprisingly comfortable from fingertips to toes. I wore my now discontinued Bontrager OMW boots, PI tights with a PI wind barrier pants, Giro winter jacket, some older Novara 4 finger gloves with BarMitts and my Giro MTB goggles. Good ride otherwise! It was about 6 degrees.

rholland1951

I've been finding that the KN-95 respirators that have gotten me through the pandemic so far have the interesting side-effect that they effectively warm inhaled air (I suppose, through mixing with retained exhalations). Respiration is free enough to get me up the toughest hills I mess with. Serendipity.

rod

rumrunn6

wow talk about die-hards!

yesterday sunrise 4 degrees I wore cycling gear for an all-day auto road trip. mostly just base layers but when I got to NY, after visiting parents, added layers to work on brothers roof gutters at 15 degrees. back home 8 degrees

briefly considered getting the bike out for 1 am Monday for some dark snow riding, but already did that w/ the last storm & this one will turn to rain, so after this hard freeze I'll be keeping at eye on our sump pump. a frozen air pocket might render it useless

rumrunn6

cpl inches on the ground & I think the rain will start soon out around Stow now. news says auto accidents are piling up

rumrunn6

ooh Saturday looks very cold with a little snow mid-day? could be super fluffy, so on a dry paved trail, might be fine w/ just road bike tires!

rholland1951

Rolled out on the GT Wednesday evening for a sunset ride on the Minuteman, temperatures in the balmy mid-40s, wind from the SW about 20mph when it felt like it, which was most of the time.




Fun on thin ice?


It's January, and we're still getting pedestrians in dark clothes and cyclists riding without lights, hiding in the darkness. Puzzling.

Today was a thaw. A freeze is next, of course. Different fun is coming every day.

rod

rumrunn6

great photo. wonderful moment

rholland1951

The rain stopped, the wind rose, temperatures dropped through the 30s, and I took the GT out for a mid-afternoon ride on the Minuteman. Puddles here and there held the sky and the treetops, now and again had already glazed over in the colder spots in Lexington, rolled over those with the studded Nokians. The low sun peered fiercely over the southern horizon, casting sharp shadows of the bike, the rider, and the occasional park bench that were projected far into Arlington's Great Meadow. The bare trees cast their shadows too, striping the trail like a barcode, which I rode through, the left eye flickering outbound, the right eye inbound. I found that I could read the message in the flicker, which I transcribed: IF YOU DON'T STOP DOING THAT YOU'LL GO BLIND.


rod

NomarsGirl

I've never ridden the Minuteman. It's on my list. Definitely this spring. I don't like cold weather riding. I don't have the clothes.

rumrunn6

thank you for the update, those puddles are probably ice today

rholland1951

Clothes--and other gear--for winter riding is a sub-discipline unto itself. I find what works for a given ride varies somewhat as the temperature falls by 5° increments, and attention must be paid, separately, to torso, legs, hands, feet, head, face/neck. In addition, the presence of wind, rain, and snow matter; these are best managed by good shells, worn over insulating layers, and designed to breathe.

Beyond that, there is the road/trail surface to consider: will there be ice? will there be snow? If snow is present, what is its condition; snow is weirdly polymorphic, as all those old jokes about the Eskimo words for it indicate (those jokes are righter about snow than they are about linguistics or cultural anthropology, by the way). This leads to consideration of studded tires, fat tires, and tires with aggressive treads, each of which will help in some situations, but not necessarily in others.

What's really at stake is how many days of a given cold season you're able to ride in reasonable comfort and safety. One approach is to assess your existing riding clothes: can you ride comfortably down to 60° in them? Then ask yourself: what about 55°? 50°? 45°?... and so on, down to 35°. A lot of winter days are cool or cold, but still above freezing. On many of those days, the roads and some of the trails are clear. Paying attention to freeze/thaw cycles helps you judge that. You can set yourself up for those days with a couple of different pairs of gloves, a couple of weights of base layer (merino or synthetic, torso and legs), a good insulting layer, and a good shell. Below the freezing point it's a different world, you may want to add some heavier insulation, and rain and wind will lead you to increasingly sophisticated shells, to say nothing of tire choices motivated by snow and ice. The N+1 rule applies to winter riding gear at least as well as it applies to bikes, and to gloves in particular. But understanding what sorts of conditions your existing gear will and won't support is really helpful in determining that any day you do ride is a good day and a good ride. Almost nobody rides every day, but some come mighty close.

That's broad strategy (I know, you didn't ask for it); looking through old posts on this forum during the winter months will turn up lots of stories about what specifically has worked well for people over the years, and what hasn't.

Choose your target conditions, prepare, and enjoy. Spring is coming.

rod

rumrunn6

yes! just 1 more month of bad ... (February)

I think March can be cruel & April is just a tease

Ghazmh

This morning I figured it was time to finally clean up and lube my Chris King R45 hub on my Allroads bike. While the chain and cassette was submerged in my ultrasonic cleaner I focused on the hub. After many paper towels and Qtips later to my chagrin I found a crack on the inside of the machined aluminum hub body. A short drive later I had it in the hands of Battle Road Bikes for evaluation. While there I noticed two of Rods bikes on the rack.

rumrunn6

good luck w/ the hub & that's great seeing a fellow BF'r's bikes!

rumrunn6

MFA today. good Ekua Holmes exhibit

rholland1951

Yup, in for winter maintenance. There was actually another lurking in the pile, something that hasn't been so often seen here. And another in the basement, waiting for a part... Love those guys!

rod

rholland1951

Saturday afternoon, I took the 1987 GT Karakoram rigid MTB sporting the now-not-for-sale Nokian W240 26" studded tires and rode East.


Temperatures for this ride started and ended at 22°, rolling up to 25° by mid-afternoon, then rolling back down again by sunset, with a North wind that worked against me on some of the hills and with me on others, but never too much in either case. This was the usual menu of hills and traffic through Arlington, Medford, Malden, Melrose, and Stoneham, only colder, with the studded Nokians eliciting extra effort from legs, lungs, heart, at the same time changing the handling of the GT in subtle ways that definitely got my attention from time to time.

Malden, Bell Rock Cemetery: just chilling.


Malden, Northern Strand Community Trail: the rider of the blue bike in the statuary peloton is missing. This is something of a mystery.


A little further along, it appeared that somebody had knocked over a porta-john, certainly a loss of a valuable convenience for trail users, which reminded me of a quaint rural prank--outhouse tipping--not much practiced in urban settings. I wonder if Deacon Brown was in residence at the time?


The wheels kept spinning, the Earth turned another fraction, and I found myself up in the hills at sunset.


Malden, Fellsmere Pond: where do we put the goal?


I followed the sunset home.


rod

Ghazmh

Now that my off season road bike is out of commission for a while my Evergreen gravel bike get to accumulate miles doubling as my off season road bike. Something it is quite good at since my Allroads is basically a straight tubed Evergreen and both have generous tire clearance. Although both are set up and equipped for their respective purposes they can overlap each other when needed for the most part. Yesterday I rode my Evergreen 32 miles while the mercury was hovering around 20 degrees. As usual my boots, BarMitts and balaclava kept me mostly comfortable.