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East Coasters: How is the great winter storm affecting your commute?

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East Coasters: How is the great winter storm affecting your commute?

Old 01-25-16, 10:17 PM
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East Coasters: How is the great winter storm affecting your commute?

We only got about 2" of precipitation from Jonas in Raleigh, but it was almost all sleet and freezing rain, which is slow to melt. Sunday was very sunny and the streets cleared in sunny areas, but a lot of black ice developed overnight with temps in the 20s. I had no choice but to drive today but was hopeful that I could ride on Tuesday. However, the skies clouded up early this morning and the remaining ice didn't melt as much as expected. I drove home on parts of my cycling route, and a lot of ice remains in shadier sections of roads. In addition, temperatures are already colder than the low that was forecasted earlier in the day, so it is very likely that there will be a lot of frozen slush and black ice on Tuesday morning. It sucks but it's futile fighting Mother Nature. We generally don't get enough icy weather to justify the expense and hassle of using studded tires.
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Old 01-25-16, 11:42 PM
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Friday night when I went in the roads were fine, coming home the roads were terrible! Took me 2 hours 20 minutes to go 12.5 miles (got home at 4:43 am). Saturday going in the roads were fine but the one section of bike path was not plowed so I had to push a couple hundred yards to where it was plowed by the other twp. Today we had great sunny 40 deg weather, what an enjoyable ride! I do have studded Nokian Hakkapolita front & rear tires, couldn't do it without them!
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Old 01-26-16, 12:55 AM
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Well I live on Staten Island and commute into Manhattan for work. I had the chance to test out the Slipnot Snowchains I got a few weeks ago for my mountain bike/snow duty commuter. A travel ban was in effect on Saturday and we got about 26 inches in my area. I had to commute in on Sunday (the day after the blizzard, no bus running in my area and the Staten Island railway was shut down till about midday), and Monday the 25th. Usually I ride from my home to the railway which terminates at the Staten Island Ferry. The main roads were plowed well enough but the side streets were barely plowed and lined with snowed in card with people digging them out so I had a good mixed bag of road conditions for their use on the way to the Staten island ferry (1 hour ride on a normal day, took about 30 extra minutes in this time)

.

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Old 01-26-16, 07:46 AM
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Stayed home Friday and worked from home. Did that again Monday morning, then rode in for the afternoon.

Finally found some black ice out on the bike path behind a city park this morning and went down. I should have stuck to the roads, oh well. I picked myself back up and got to work.
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Old 01-26-16, 08:10 AM
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My area got more than a foot of snow; I can't tell how much more.* Whatever. It's melting fast enough. I drove over to the train station yesterday with a snow shovel and cleared off my bike locker. The snowplow guys had made a mess of things, as usual, but by good luck this time the mess didn't affect me much. I shoveled out my locker and went home.

No problem riding to the station this morning. I left a little early and took a minor detour to avoid a street that has not been plowed, and had to run a red light because I couldn't get to the button (on the sidewalk, not plowed, on the other side of a big pile of snow plowed from the road) that triggers a green light.

*edit... "official" reports for my area are 22.5 inches of snowfall.
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Old 01-26-16, 08:11 AM
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I was tempted to ride this morning because the temperature was hovering just above freezing, but it's a good thing that I drove. I encountered lots of black ice on my driving route, and my cycling route would have been even worse due to more shade, hills, lack of plowing, etc. I'll just have to consider this week my vacation from cycling. The same thing happened last February. In both cases, I racked up a bunch of miles during the first two weeks of the month but was mostly unable to ride during the past two weeks.
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Old 01-26-16, 08:22 AM
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We got 3 ft of snow. I might not get to ride again until spring.
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Old 01-26-16, 09:07 AM
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Yup, 3 feet here. Drove to work even though the office is officially closed. MUPs have footprints, but no sign of clearing, which is a good thing, because all resources should be devoted to clearing the roads first.
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Old 01-26-16, 01:01 PM
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New York City got over two feet, which kept me off my bike for three days, which the longest I've been off a bike since last February, when we got to deal with the messy, brutal winter last year.

I rode in this morning. I wasn't sure it was entirely wise, but the temp. was in the 40s, so I figured ice wouldn't be a problem. It was a slog. The streets were mostly OK, but much narrower because of all the muck, so got stuck when I otherwise would have scooched through. At a number of points, I was forced to go through mounds of slush, which was dicey. At one point, guys blowing snow onto the FDR Drive service road forced me to veer way out into the travel lane, which fortunately was clear. The temp. tonight when I go home will 40, so I hope I'll be OK.

Tomorrow will be a bigger issue. It'll be colder, and it's the night I go 10 miles uptown and 13 miles back down. Battling traffic and slush piles on narrowed streets for that distance won't be much fun. And at night, the temp. will get close to freezing, so I'll worry about ice. I think discretion should probably be the better part of valor, and I should pass on riding tomorrow night, which annoys me.

Bike share is still shut down. It would have been handy yesterday and today. Those tanks do better in the muck, and my bikes don't get dirty. How much do I have to worry about salt on the components of my aluminum bike?

Everything is pretty much up and running and back to normal, and this winter has been much milder than last, so I shouldn't complain.
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Old 01-26-16, 02:34 PM
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@wilfried, how many miles is your normal commute? I'm lucky in that only 2.5 miles of my 13.5 mile commute are on streets. The rest is on the Hudson River Greenway. But I don't expect that to be clear for a while. Another hurdle for me is the overall length of my commute. It might not be prudent to get back on the bike for a while, because even a small slowdown amounts to a lot of real time for me.
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Old 01-26-16, 02:50 PM
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My commute is only about 3 miles, so easier to cope with. The East River bike path was mostly clear, though getting onto it at 15th St. under the FDR was really messy, and there are couple places where you have to go through curb cuts. It was a slow slog, but that just meant it took ~16 mins., rather the the usual ~13 mins.
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Old 01-26-16, 04:29 PM
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Three feet here and I've been teleworking to this point. Probably will do the same tomorrow and then check out the MUPs on Thursday. Today was in the 50's and a lot of melting occurred.
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Old 01-26-16, 04:40 PM
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Not at all.
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Old 01-26-16, 06:47 PM
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Originally Posted by smokeysurvival
Well I live on Staten Island and commute into Manhattan for work. I had the chance to test out the Slipnot Snowchains I got a few weeks ago for my mountain bike/snow duty commuter. A travel ban was in effect on Saturday and we got about 26 inches in my area. I had to commute in on Sunday (the day after the blizzard, no bus running in my area and the Staten Island railway was shut down till about midday), and Monday the 25th. Usually I ride from my home to the railway which terminates at the Staten Island Ferry. The main roads were plowed well enough but the side streets were barely plowed and lined with snowed in card with people digging them out so I had a good mixed bag of road conditions for their use on the way to the Staten island ferry (1 hour ride on a normal day, took about 30 extra minutes in this time)

.

So, give us a review on the tire chains. Curious how they ride on pavement.
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Old 01-27-16, 07:24 AM
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it's not affecting it too much.

i want to say Monday's commute was the prettiest i've done, and also the most solitary. i was one of a few people out - it was remarkable. just incredible. much was plowed but much was not. i wrote it up here: https://www.bikeforums.net/winter-cyc...nowy-ride.html

it's the one day i needed my studded tires. after that, i've needed my studded tires in spots but i could have easily done without them. temps have been above freezing this entire time, both evening and day so a lot has been melting.

my morning ride usually takes about 20 min, but on Mon morning it took 30 min. this morning it took me 25 min. so it's not completely clear esp. with all the parked cars pushing snow they had out into the bike lanes now.
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Old 01-27-16, 08:55 AM
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whoa, I didn't even know bicycle tire chains were a thing.

Meanwhile in NYC, Casey Neistat was up to his usual shenanigans

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Old 01-27-16, 09:00 AM
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I had my wife drive me in on Monday and Tuesday since my car couldn't get out of the driveway.

We've had enough melting now that I was able to ride in this morning. Lanes are a bit narrower than normal, but roads are just wet.
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Old 01-27-16, 09:01 AM
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Can you use those chains with rim brakes? I imagine not.
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Old 01-27-16, 10:24 AM
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Originally Posted by bigbenaugust
Can you use those chains with rim brakes? I imagine not.
yup i agree with you, probably disc would be OK
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Old 01-27-16, 12:21 PM
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The review is in the works.
https://www.slipnottraction.com/faq.html
According to the company they do work with rim brakes. On my bike I have discs but the chains didn't wrap around so far around the sidewall as to touch the rim. This could also vary depending on how large your tire is to the width of the chains as less width could mean the chains will come around the sidewall more. I don't know if all kinds of rim brakes would work but I would assume styles with a lot of clearance like canti's or v brakes would work just fine.

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Old 01-27-16, 01:02 PM
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What commute?
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Old 01-29-16, 03:07 PM
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i have done a lot more driving than i had planned. at least i started my gym membership back and have ran and lifted some,. so that has been nice. I am lookng forward to riding next week. A LOT !
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Old 01-31-16, 05:13 PM
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In January I got in 7 out of a possible 8 commute days (only got in 6 last year). For February I only got in 3 commutes last year, so I'm hoping I can top that this year!
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Old 02-01-16, 06:48 AM
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I waited until today to resume riding. The issue was narrow roadways and subfreeze icing of the melt-off. Not worth the risk of falling. Things were fine today. We only got 22" or so. Not like the folks just a bit inland where the totals were above 30".
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Old 02-01-16, 08:07 AM
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I imagine that VA-MD-WV-PA etc. had quite a bit of snow melt over the weekend. Temperatures were in the 60s-70s in NC over the weekend but most of our snow and ice were already long gone. Often the melting snow poses more hazards than the actual snow, when it refreezes overnight. However, it was so warm over the weekend that I imagine that temperatures were above freezing all along the East Coast.
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