Originally Posted by PaulH
Freezing rain coats the road with black ice. A clear frost layer on the road also provides pruchase for the studs. Freezing rain that freezes on you but not the road will not be helped by studs, nor will a rime ice coating on the road (opaque frost).
Maybe your definitions of freezing rain and frost are different from mine. But you are right -- if the studs can't dig in to something, even a thin layer, they provide little benefit.
Paul
We get black ice here too, but it isn't all that common.
When I'm talking about freezing rain, I mean rain that freezes on me - you should see me coming in from some of my rides, when I bend my arms, all the ice cracks off!
And the frost layer on the road is usually VERY thin (you'd need special tools to be able to measure the thickness). (Well, hoarfrost is thick, but it doesn't collect on the road)
On my century last Saturday, I had both freezing rain AND frost -- hoarfrost. The hoarfrost developed because of a thick fog which shrouded the area for the first few hours. My bicycle and I were covered in ice from the freezing rain, and then the hoarfrost formed on top of that ... I looked like a snowman!!
A couple times I stopped to check the road - once because it looked slippery to me, and once because the sound my tires were making changed and I wanted to know what the road conditions felt like ... both times it was fine.