fun on the way to work?

"Arthur Clune" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Top ride to work today. Snow on the ground, but no ice underneath.

Cycled on quiet roads and off-road paths where the cars hadn't turned the snow to slush and had a
lovely, lovely ride in.

Gentle on the corners, stay of the brakes, no keys in pockets just in case and away to go...

Can't wait to ride home now!

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune clune.orgclune.orgOpen ↗ "Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a
personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

Fun on the way home - an inch of snow at 3.30pm has rendered Northampton gridlocked. My route is
mostly off-road - nicde soft snow, not slippy at all, in fact bit too much rolling resistance.

Only took a bit longer than usual mostly due to stopping to give a man with a scooter a push, having
a chat with another cyclist and nipping into into Sainsburys to panic buy some breakfast cereal.

Did a bit of inane smirking at people in non-moving cars during the on road bits.

:-)))

Wow, the whole of B'ham (well, central and south B'ham - Richard will tell us about te north side)
was in a TOTAL grid lock situation tonight. Had to ride down the out side all the way home, I
couldn't run with the traffic even if I'd wanted to, it just wasn't moving. Only touble was that the
centre line was covered in slush which started off as OK but even in the time I was out there began
to freeze very rapidly. I'm amazed that I made it al the way without falling off. did some massive
wheel spins now and then though.

The look on some of the drivers faces was a treat. Not many looks of hate etc. Mostly the looks were
like a dog might look at you sometimes "please feel sorry for me"

Ha!

--
Cheerful Peddling John Mallard

I left work at 6:10pm this evening into the most painful snowfall I've ever experienced. There was
lightning (the only time I've ever seen this combination was in Moscow) watched the snow piling up
and the traffic grinding to a halt!

Lowest gear all the way. 700x23Cs are not the best snow tyres (more like skates!) and I had a couple
of shaky corners.

Simon

"SamorMike" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Fun on the way home .

Hmm... well, no actually. I had every kind of slide there is on my way home across London - front
wheel skids, rear wheel skids (despite using the brakes as gingerly as possible), wheel spin, even
sideways slides down the camber of speed cushions. At least I succeeded to stay on two wheels with
cadence braking... for most of the ride. The centre of the road was clear of snow but the sides
weren't and the only way past the cars was on the slipperiest bits. I admit there were a few places
where I decided that if it was only safe to cycle at walking pace I might as well get off and walk
and did so. I was a favourite and easy target for children throwing snowballs, which were
distracting, and the falling snow stung my eyes. Eventually I did fall off, close to home, where the
slush had been compacted and frozen solid across a wide, long and unavoidable patch that I noticed
just as I arrived on it, and shortly thereafter landed on, as I had to stop somehow as it was on
approach to an intersection. Fortunately no harm done to self and bike. It was difficult even to
walk across it. I think my journey home took about 50% longer than usual - but was still undoubtedly
a lot quicker than those of many of the drivers I passed stuck in queues ;-).

And who was the @#@!! newbie cycle commuter who said, sometime back in October or thereabouts, that
they 'couldn't wait' for the snow?

Rich

SamorMike said:

Fun on the way home - an inch of snow at 3.30pm has rendered Northampton gridlocked. My route is
mostly off-road - nicde soft snow, not slippy at all, in fact bit too much rolling resistance.

Note to self: next time there's a credible warning of snow, take the MTB not the 'bent...

Guy
===
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chapmancentral.demon.co.ukchapmancentral.demon.co.ukOpen ↗

Richard Goodman said:

"SamorMike" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Fun on the way home .

snip

Quoted message said:

And who was the @#@!! newbie cycle commuter who said, sometime back in October or thereabouts, that
they 'couldn't wait' for the snow?

Rich

That might have been me in groups.google.co.ukgroupsOpen ↗
8&safe=active&selm=33ntpvg3hds4k2lehiac78j6ujtlet04jd%404ax.com *giving an opinion* to a newbie
commuter. I said :

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm sure this has come up before and if it has forgive me for rehashing old threads but I'm
curious to how everyone else prepares or psyches themselves up for the winter.

SNIP

1. Find all known gloves, hats, waterproofs and overtrousers in house. Dress like Michelin Man
prepared for bio-war.
2. Find I forgot to charge light battery from yesterday and curse (again) the scrote that nicked my
previous bike and SON dynohub.
3. Have coffee and a [censored] in the garden to test thermal qualities of selected outfit.
4. Ride to work and love every minute.

- don't mind rain; I've got goretex everything except pants.
- hate wind. (I've heard that in some distant parts of the globe they get 'tailwinds' but not
round here)
- pray for snow/sleet and other exciting precipitation.

I simply love cycling in snow.

Out of hours and away from traffic it's pure regression to those boyhood winter days when the school
bus couldn't make it to our village.

It's a great commute as well; it's so close to permanent grid lock at the best of times that the
slightest degradation in driving conditions brings motor traffic to a standstill. This make my
journey both safe and immensely satisfying.

As you may guess, I'm a bit miffed to find myself out of action right now.

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:44:55 -0000, in
<[email hidden]>, "John Mallard"

not_me@all said:

Wow, the whole of B'ham (well, central and south B'ham - Richard will tell us about te north side)
was in a TOTAL grid lock situation tonight.

Well, I finsihed work at 2pm in central Bham, took the train to Sutton Coldfield, worked again from
4 til 6, went to the pub, had an orchestra rehearsal cancelled which should have started at 8pm.
Went back to pub to let the traffic settle. Walked home to Kingstanding.

My sister's boyfriend who finishes work at 5 in the city centre arrived home after me.

Didn't touch my bike at all today. Was carrying my trumpet with me so I would have used public
transport even if it wasn't snowing.

--
I remember when the internet was only in black & white. It only had a few pages but at least they
all worked. Email: Put only the word "richard" before the @ sign.

Just zis Guy said:

Note to self: next time there's a credible warning of snow, take the MTB not the 'bent...

Your bent's too low, Guy. I had no handling problems with the Street Machine, probably better off
than on the ATB. :-P

I still had to walk some of the way, but that was because I couldn't see where I was going with the
driving snow (ouch that stung my cheeks).

--
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
speedy5.freeserve.co.ukdannyOpen ↗
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

Its only a short ride into uni for me (about 2 miles) so for me it is michelin man time. Over shoes, over trousers, ski coat with proper fitted hood and rode gingerly in because it was quite slushy. Traffic wasn't moving too badly in Manchester. I wish I had put the grippy off road tyres on instead of my continental grand prix slicks which saw me sliding all over the place on the side roads. A nice ride in though. Amazing how many people don't cycle as soon as the weather gets a bit biting though.

Arthur Clune said:

Top ride to work today. Snow on the ground, but no ice underneath.

Cycled on quiet roads and off-road paths where the cars hadn't turned the snow to slush and had a
lovely, lovely ride in.

Gentle on the corners, stay of the brakes, no keys in pockets just in case and away to go...

Can't wait to ride home now!

I'll never understand how, when I have to get off and push, that there are always cyclists going
past me on the road on sheet ice? Is it just me that can't handle this or is it something I'm not
doing right? Had to walk 4 miles last night pushing the bike!

"Stephen (aka steford)" <[email hidden]>
wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'll never understand how, when I have to get off and push, that there are always cyclists going
past me on the road on sheet ice? Is it just me that can't handle this or is it something I'm not
doing right? Had to walk 4 miles last night pushing the bike!

Same experience here this morning. I thought I was doing rather well given the conditions, until
somebody who normally can't keep up with me went tearing past. At least I did make it all the way on
two wheels (well, apart from the couple of feet on my backside when my back wheel caught a lump of
ice and went sideways). I'm getting good at this falling off lark - twice in two weeks now.

It did seem like the faster I went the more stable I was, and was less affected by those frozen
lumps wanting to push the wheels sideways. And it was slowing down at a junction when I finally
succumbed. Maybe I'm just not brave enough?

Steve.

"Stephen \(aka steford\)" <[email hidden]> wrote:
:>
: I'll never understand how, when I have to get off and push, that there are always cyclists going
: past me on the road on sheet ice? Is it just me that can't handle this or is it something I'm not
: doing right? Had to walk 4

It can be done. It requires

1) A willingness to fall off. Thick clothes. Nothing in pockets.

2) Relax. Let the bike do what it wants. Don't try and fight it. Steer by very gentle knudges

3) Corner ginergly

4) Don't brake.

5) Keep it in a low gear and keep pedalling at a nice smooth rate. Sudden applications of torque
will make you fall off

6) Equipment wise, wide flat bars and semi-slicks work for me. Knobblies are probably worse than
slicks I reckon. Run the tyres very soft.

7) Some luck

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune clune.orgclune.orgOpen ↗ "Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

"Richard Goodman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I was a favourite and easy target for children throwing snowballs, which were distracting, and the
falling snow stung my eyes.

Ah yes, the snowballs. I came under a hail of fire from a teenage gang in Darkest Harrow. I thought
I'd dodged them all but one icy one caught my glasses and knocked the lens out. I had to stop to
look for it and harsh words were exchanged. It could have turned ugly for a moment or two but within
a few minutes the police arrived, having been summoned by a concerned bystander, and the teenagers
melted away faster than the snow.

Earlier the traffic in Watford had been completely gridlocked, and I had had to pick my way
carefully through it. The A4008 between Watford and Harrow was also very slow. Although I was
steadily overtaking cars I still had to go carefully as many of the ruts formed by their tyres had
frozen into nasty slippery ridges. Where possible the virgin snow between the two lanes of traffic
gave the best ride.

Although it's only a tiny bit further south, it was considerably warmer from just before Northholt.
The snowfall had been lighter and the road was wet rather than icy. Just one tricky moment coming
down the hill towards Northolt tube station at about 30 mph. Just as the road bent to the right I
realised I was no longer on normal wet road but back on patches of slush-covered ice. Luckily I
managed to roll through them.

By now my feet had become wet and cold after all that trudging around in the snow with the
teenagers, and I was glad to be able to warm up by mashing a highish gear along the B454 between
Southall and Brentford, and on up the A310 through Isleworth to Twickenham. About an hour and
fifty minutes in all to cover the 20 miles home, including stoppage time to cause a breach of the
peace. What fun!

--
Dave...

Just zis Guy said:

Note to self: next time there's a credible warning of snow, take the MTB not the 'bent...

Shock, horror. Guy admits upwrong may be better than bent ;-)

Tony

On 28/1/04 8:10 pm, in article [email hidden],

Not Responding said:

I simply love cycling in snow.

Out of hours and away from traffic it's pure regression to those boyhood winter days when the
school bus couldn't make it to our village.

Well, I don't think I'm quite that young, and I grew up in the outskirts of London, but I
like snow too.

I have almost got to the point of putting the winter tyres on the commuter. Riding slicks on frozen
ice/slush is not a good plan. Knobblies are good, and hard packed snow ( not slush) is great.

It was also a lot of fun having the cars crawling around absolutely petrified of crashing
(for once).

..d

In article said:

Just zis Guy said:

Note to self: next time there's a credible warning of snow, take the MTB not the 'bent...

Your bent's too low, Guy. I had no handling problems with the Street Machine, probably better off
than on the ATB. :-P

Or it's got the wrong number of wheels - I happened across these instructions for making snow chains
for a unicycle: rpi.eduunichains.htmlOpen ↗

David Martin <[email hidden]> wrote:

: I have almost got to the point of putting the winter tyres on the commuter. Riding slicks on
: frozen ice/slush is not a good plan. Knobblies are good, and hard packed snow ( not slush)
: is great.

I'm riding semi-slicks on the MTB at the mo and they work very well.

Going home yesterday was, erm, interesting. The nice snow from the morning has melted and then re-
frozen into sheets of ice. Couple of "well, just have to let the bike go where it wants" moments but
I stayed on.

Coming in this morning was more of the same. Some of the stuff I was cycling over was really hard
to walk over, which proves the advantages of not thinking too much about how you are doing what you
are doing!

(this was on an off-road, un-gritted route. The roads weren't too bad, but I fancied a challenge)

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune clune.orgclune.orgOpen ↗ "Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

"Tony Raven" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Note to self: next time there's a credible warning of snow, take the MTB not the 'bent...

Quoted message said:

Shock, horror. Guy admits upwrong may be better than bent ;-)

Yup., Right up until the moment I get the winter tyres for the 'bent, that is...

--
Guy
===

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