Damn slippery commute today!
 

So it snowed last night and I went out for a night ride on the singletrack trails by my house and it was great. The snow was wet but fluffy, and the flakes were big and just floating to the ground. It was the first ride of the season in the snow...it was very peaceful with my light illuminating the flakes falling to the ground while negotiating the trail.

Anyway, this morning it was dark and had gotten cold enough over night that everything had just turned into ice. Less than a minute from my house, I took a spill as I crossed a road. That hurt so I was pretty timid the rest of the way. The roads and paths were so slippery initially that I had to ride on the snow covered grass as much as possible. When I got into the river valley, things were a little better but there were still icy patches everywhere...definitely made for an exciting ride.

The distance is 20km and today, it took me exactly 1 hour. If I take the road bike and go flat out (in good weather of course), my best time is 27:45 and average is 29 minutes. Lately (not today though), I've been meeting up with my Dad and commuting to work, we usually make it in 44-48 minutes and he doesn't push too hard (he doesn't have a shower at work).

So basically, it was a slow and slippery commute. Trying to find the non-icy lines on the path feels more exhausting than pushing as hard as you can in nice weather...well, at least mentally tiring.

Anyone else have a commute like this yet this season?

And don't ask me why I posted three of these threads...my damn computer is acting up!

It's slippery here now, yes. We have had snow here now for about 2 weeks, but I didn't have problems until yesterday. There was a foot of wet and heavy snow on the bikepath. I'm still on knobbies (saving for some real Nokian studded) and with the normal 65 psi the wheels cut through the snow to the slippery ice beneath so I had some searious gravity-problems. After I let out almost all the air I had some flotation and good traction, max speed around 12 km/h.
After I got off the bikepath I noticed that I probably let out too much air, I could feel the rims hitting the ground every now and then. The rolling resistance was immense though.

Today I rode with rather low air-pressure to have traction on the icy sections, but had no problems with snow.

Try reducing the pressure, it's amazing how much grip you get. If it isn't enough you need studded tires.

Yah, the ride in this morning was a bit of an adventure. I came in the bike path along the river from the west. When I saw it snowing last night, I thought everything would be wet and slushy this morning. I was a little suprised to find it had frozen solid. Some of the side streets were icy treacherous, and there were a few spots on the paths that were exciting. I passed 2 people walking their bikes, and another guy was going so slow he might as well have been walking. I lost traction maybe 6 times but managed to recover and avoid wiping out. Good fun, but you're right - it was much slower than usual. Should be OK going home tonight though.

The tires are already fairly low, I had aired them down to ride on the trails last night. But with a 700x30 tire, there isn't much volume to play with. For more traction, I have two options, I can get a larger volume tire or get a studded tire. I'd definitely like to get a larger volume tire for singletrack riding, so maybe I'll try that and see how it goes.

Last year I rode the Peugeot in bad weather and the traction was better, likely due to the tires (26x2.1).

I thought it would be slushy as well...I was hoping for a fun ride in the snow (like last night), not a cautious ride with ice. But it looks better out there already.

I can belive you had problems on 700x30 tires. To me it looks like your Peugeot is a quite nice snow-bike, If you want to turn it into a snow-beast you could add some phat Nokians. Actually the Peugeot is quite similar to my ride ;)

Where in Calgary are you guys. I come down from Strathcona and we got about 5cm (on top of ice) up there. Made the descent into the Bow valley a little trickier than usual. Still, there were plenty of tire tracks heading down the path behind Shaganappi which reaffirms to me we have a good-sized hardcore commuting community here. The best part of riding in on days like today is that while all the drivers are freaking out, scowling and such, cyclists are still smiling.

I come in from Tuscany in the NW and work downtown at 8 Ave/7 St SW. As I was making my way down the hills through Bowmont Park, there were only a couple of other tire tracks but once I got down to the river after Home Rd., there was evidence of quite a few cyclists, even at 7am.

It was entertaining seeing how backed up traffic was today!