Winter Cycling - Winterized Rat Rod vs. Anchorage

I finally got my Rat Rod set up for the snow and ice, and the snow and ice are finally here. For those who don't know, Los Anchorage is among the worst cities in the US for ice and snow. We get a mix of deep cold fronts out of Siberia, wet weather from the Gulf of Alaska and freak chinook winds from Prince William Sound that melt everything to clear ice. Some days you can't walk three feet without sliding, and it stays like this until mid march or later.

I got the Electra Rat Rod last summer with the thought that the three speed internal hub and disk brake would fare better in the cold. So far, so good. I put Nokian "Freddie's Revenz" studs on it and it's extremely stable. Not too fast, but stable. I did test rides across pack ice, packed snow, soft snow, and angled snow and ice on the heaps of debris that pass for sidewalks in this 'berg. No slips of any kind on any of it. Though when I put it into third and got up some speed on a roadway I felt a tiny bit of instability from the back as I passed over a sheet of quarter inch impacted black ice.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/Nokian.jpg

Awesome winter bike!

Cosmoline, do they use salt on the roads in Anchorage? Is corrosion a concern for you?

Nice setup... more pics please :-)

Nice!!!

Cosmoline, do they use salt on the roads in Anchorage? Is corrosion a concern for you?

Not too much. The do sand them, but all salt tends to do is make a layer of water on the existing ice. They concentrate their efforts on scraping all ice off the main roads and putting lots of sand down, plus doing a rough plow on the side roads with a little sand. The result is, the main roads and highways are actually excellent and keep rolling all winter but the side roads can become almost impossible to even walk across. Every winter people scream at the Muni government about it, and every winter the muni ignores them :D

That's not to say the city does nothing. But its efforts tend to be strange and perverse. My favorite is when the parks workers come out with their expensive mini-snow plows and clear off every spec of new snow from the solid two inches of ice on the bike trails! Yeah, we wouldn't want that snow giving anyone any traction or anything. But this year I'm going to ride on all of it like a leaf on the wind. A huge, lumbering leaf.

Nice set up, nokian's are great. Electra's are cool!

Just FYI, the muni mixes salt into the road sand. Shouldn't be a problem if you give your bike a quick wash occasionally.

My Ice Bike is ready to be picked up tomorrow! It's a lower end Kona, nothing fancy. Just remember as you glide effortlessly on the ice on your bike, that when you put your foot down, you may slip unless you got studds on your shoes/boots or some sort or ice grippers. I know this from experience...:)
Do you have lights? I suggest getting some front and back if you go anywhere near a road, even to cross. Alaskan drivers are stupid and don't like people riding bikes in the winter.

And I gotta say it, the Binkley sticker has got to go :)

Thanks for the heads up on the salt. Stupid muni.

One nice thing about the Electra is you can wear any sort of boots on it. I've just been riding with my spiked Danners, which are the next best thing to crampons.

I have a bunch of lights and new reflectors that will be going on shortly. Binkley is my lost cause. Everybody needs one.

Test No. 2. Took the Rat to the store with a large dog on a leash to my side. A large and stubborn dog who likes to stop suddenly and then bolt out in front of me. But even he couldn't unseat me with these tires!

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/rat.jpg

Totally Awesome! I love Electra, where did you buy it from?

Sunshine Sports over on Northern Lights. I'm drooling over the new Electra Amsterdam they've just announced.

More photos. Still going strong!

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/Snee1.jpg

Typical back alley, in relatively good shape:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/Snee2.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/snee3.jpg

Went down to the rifle range for Vets day, 30 miles round trip. The Rat did good until I got out of the midtown area and started hitting heavy chop. The sidewalks get worse as you go south, and bike lanes disappear. There's also a lot of filty street ice chunks that are tossed up by the snowplows. They're hard as rocks and range from small chunks to chunks weighing about fifty pounds. The cruiser's inherent limitations showed themselves, and I sure would have liked a mountain bike about then to get over and around them. But I made it, which is the main point.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/Vets1.jpg

Went down to the rifle range for Vets day, 30 miles round trip. The Rat did good until I got out of the midtown area and started hitting heavy chop. The sidewalks get worse as you go south, and bike lanes disappear. There's also a lot of filty street ice chunks that are tossed up by the snowplows. They're hard as rocks and range from small chunks to chunks weighing about fifty pounds. The cruiser's inherent limitations showed themselves, and I sure would have liked a mountain bike about then to get over and around them. But I made it, which is the main point.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/Vets1.jpg

the bike trails midtown and chester especially get rough as a cob because they don't plow em and everyone goes out and walks their pooch leaving footprints that set-up really nice after a typical freeze-thaw-freeze cycle. Anchorage can get tedious as hell on a bicycle mid-winter because as anyone would notice that city is all about cars n trucks, pedestrians and bicycles are merely targets. Cool bike.

They're plowing better this year in some places, but in another month the sidewalks in Spenard will be impossible to navigate unless we get a serious Chinook. Maybe even if we do. On the plus side, the bike route along Tudor is quite nice and downtown is excellent.

The Rat is great for stability, and I still haven't fallen once. But the down side is I can't use arm power to get over heavy chop or through deep drifts. I'd like a similar bike with a classic diamond frame. I find most mountain bikes are too light to be stable on the ice, and your center of gravity becomes too high. But those same bikes are much better in heavy chop and snow.

Only in Alaska: Bikes and Guns :)

I'm afraid to ask, but are those the all-mountain Freddies or the DH version?

They're the newer ones, I believe. A little lighter than the older ones, and less of a DH only tire. They chew into the ice really well. I went over some VERY nasty overflow from the Chester Creek yesterday, which is about the slickest substance I know of. The river spills its banks, then refreezes with a sheen of wet water coming in over the top layer after layer. There was a little slippage in the back, but I stayed upright and that's the main thing.

Still trucking. A few more pics

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/t3.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/th5.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/Gussick/rat1.jpg

Have you ever weighed your Electra Rat Rod? Not that it matters but am curious.

Thanks!
John

A good source for winter cycling knowledge is All Weather Sports out of Fairbanks, Alaska. I live in rainy Sitka, Alaska, where our major winter concern is freezing rain and not extreme cold, and I still consult the site for info on the best winter cycling gear. Also, many of the top riders in the old Iditabike/Iditasport and newer replacement races consult with owner Simon Rakower for the latest winter cycling techno-babble. Click the buttons on the bottom of the page for more detailed winter cycling information.

http://www.allweathersports.com/

Thanks for that link. I'm in the process of building a new ice bike for next year.