Bike Forums - In Praise of Studs

It was 4:45, and I was looking out the window at the traffic 39 floors below me. The snow was falling so heavily that I actually had to try not to inhale it as I left my building. My wife had told me to take the bus home, just in case it was too dangerous on the roads. I thanked her for her concern but said I would ride my bike.

After I had cleared the bulk of the traffic in the core, I took my lane on the feeder road that takes me toward home. I had no trouble accelerating past the bulk of traffic, as they spun their wheels and crept along at a jogger's pace. The studded tires hooked up beautifully, allowing me to easily beat a BMW M5 across an intersection and halfway to the next light.

When I finally got to The Hill, I moved smoothly and easily, the blue beam of my headlight filtered as a pale green through the yellow lenses of my glasses to wash the snow in front of me. Cresting the hill and out of the din of traffic, all I could hear was my breathing and the purr of my tires in the snow. I'd never heard a bike purr before. My snowboard purrs when it hits freshly groomed corduroy, but this was different. Softer - but with a hint of tic-tic-tic from my spikes as they rolled through the untouched white.