This was my first week riding in the snow, and I was using with Nokian H106s. The tires were great, no problem at all with traction on any reasonable surface.

What's unreasonable, you wonder? I enountered something I never expected despite cruising the winter biking forum here and icebikes. I must have overlooked it somewhere.

Snow fell heavily during the day on Weds, and by the time I started home, pedestrians had clomped all over the MUPs I take for much of my journey home. That includes some *very* hilly parts that I normally work moderately hard to climb. I figured that my knobby/studded Nokians would allow me to make short work of them. Not so!

What I had not anticipated was that the ped footprints had created uncountable little hills and valleys which had frozen in place by the time I got to them. On the flats, this produced a very bumpy ride. On the hills, well, it was horrible -- nothing flat enough to get any real traction. Lots of sliding back, difficulty with balance, had to mash to make even very minor forward progress.

By the time I got home, I had really hurt my knees - I don't think I'll be riding while they recover. Anybody have any ideas how long tendonitis (self-diagnosed) takes to recover from?

Anyway, I learned my lesson -- I'll take the streets and avoid the footprints next time.