Allright, it's been so freakin cold and I was sick for most of January so I haven't been putting in many base miles. Wanted to commute yesterday, -8F, 20 mph winds ... screw that. Last night I announce I'm commuting no matter what. Well, ... -4F, 5-10 mph and still 9" of new snow on the ground (heavily drifted).

Change my helmet light to my ski helmet, polypropylene underwear, long underwear, ..., ..., lower Nokians to 40 psi and finally I'm ready to roll.

The streets are reasonably plowed so I don't have much trouble even on the glare ice (love Nokian studs). But, then I hit the unplowed MUP. At first, there is only about 4-5" of windblown and I get through this pretty easily. Then I get to the forested area. Ughh, over a foot of snow! I was in the freakin granny gear weazing like a horse and still had a rough time keeping going. Finally hit some burried ruts and stopped.

I couldn't start again! I couldn't push myself through the snow and by the time I started to pedal, the rear wheel being unweighted just spins. So you go nowhere. Ughhhh! So now I'm pushing my bike through the snow like a freakin snowplow.

I cover a mile or so of this and get to a narrow shoulder with curb (difficult bail out) very busy 4 lane divided highway ... in rush hour. Or ... I can trudge another 3 miles through the MUP. ... ... OK, let's risk the damn highway.

Obviously I made it as I'm writing this but I wasn't real happy about it. I watched my mirror a lot. I finally get to my side streets and everything is fine again to finish my ride.

One damn tough commute! I could handle the cold but adding the snow damn near killed me. I'm doing 155 bpm pushing my freakin bike thorugh the snow! Jesus!

I will be exercising inside till the snow melts a little.

Signed,

One depressed, cold commuter.

Congratulations on earning your Snow And Ice commuter patch (yet to be designed, maybe after I earn mine). I tried to ride last year just after a snow storm and I couldn't do it; I turned back a mile from home and then drove. I was disappointed, so I called my brother who is an all-weather biker and asked him what he does in snow. He told me he pushed his bike.

Mad props for getting as far as you did! I usually run my tires at 25-30 psi for better float when the snow gets deep.

Obviously there is nothing you can do about the deep snow. But if you are on Nokian 296's lower the pressure to 25 psi. In the soft slippery stuff on the road it helps a little. I don't go up to 40 in those condtions, it's too slipery. The low pressure helps a lot on the frozen ice footprints on an MUP also. And on flat ice.

I don't know how you ride with balls that big, they must get in the way.

heh ... I wound up doing that on Wednesday, when the Valentine's Noreaster came to Boston. There's a section of my commute where a four lane main street crosses over an eight lane interstate, and the cloverleaf can be a trick to negotiate even in good weather. There's a MUP that runs parallel, but I'd been ignoring it during winter. Then, after 9 miles into the commute and not being able to break more than 12 mph, I figured it'd be safer to get on the path.

Probably made it about 100 yards before snow got too deep and packed to stop me dead still (no studs on my tires, and I just wasn't getting pedal traction). Pushed the bike for another 200 yards before saying frag this and walked back to the street and took my chances with the cloverleaf.

So, 'roaring' down a 6% gradient at 15 mph with hail in my face and merging highway traffic weaiving past vs. trudging along 2.5 miles of dogsled heavy snow ... still can't decide which one was the safer choice.

Been there. Done that. Usually once per winter. I refuse to accept it at first. I think I'm done riding for a few days. Maybe a few weeks. We just got 24" in Burlington (Vermont) and the MUP is useless, even for walking.

Useful tip: when mounting the bike in deep snow, first sit in the saddle, using your tiptoes to balance. That allows your rear wheel to get a decent bite.

Paul

I do my route planning via Google Maps.

The city doesn't plow the entire MUP system in my city so I have devised 2 routes to get to work.
Route 1 is partly via the MUP
Route 2 is via secondary roads

Thanks guys, I still have to get home tonight and I don't want to have to make ... "the call".

Thanks Paul, I'll give it a try. I think what I can also do is tramp a path with my boots so that my wheels will roll and I can get a start. 2many, you're not worried about pinch flats running as low as 25 psi? I weigh 170 lbs. (damn winter) and have 700c Nokian Hakkapeliitta W106 35mm (should have gotten the wider!).

I run my Nokian Mount and Ground W160's (I think that's what they are) which are 1.95" wide at 35psi without issue. I haven't tried any lower though as usually I'm on packed snow or ice or bare pavement. You're right to be worried about going so low with a 35mm tire.

I think the 106's are smaller than what I have, making the rim closer to the ground and having a smaller (shorter) air cushion. 40 psi is probably just right, 35 might be OK, unless the tires are bigger than I think.

What size are they?

My Nokians are 26" x 2.1" and, are on an old mtb with old wide rims. I have a bigger and thicker (taller)air cusion than you do so I can get away with less air and more weight without pinch flats.

Ride carefully tonight.

Oh great. A full 14F degrees but now we've got 20-30mph+ winds. The ride home is going to be a real thrill.

I feel your pain. My stubborn side came out today, and I pushed the bike for almost 3.5 miles, foolishly passing up an oppurtunity to bail at mile 0.5. At mile 2.0 I figured out that the MUP from there on was not going to be plowed (incidently this was the point where I could see most of the rest).

I was a half hour later than I wanted to be (good thing I left early). I managed to break an aluminum pedal with my boot (and because of the -4 temps? maybe?) I could have ridden in it, but the amount of effort it took to keep going forward was more than my out of shape injury recovering self could manage.

The most annoying thing, was that the ice on top of the snow was _almost_ strong enough to hold me! But not quite.

I'm Googling through my options right now for the ride home.

Congrats on fighting your way through the MUP. I couldn't do that this week.

I rode all week. I avoided the MUP this week to avoid the problems you had. I stuck to the plowed roads. Fortunately, I have a job with flexible hours, so I went to work extra early when there was little traffic. On Wednesday, most of the city was closed in the morning, but I made it to work just fine. The few who made it into my work that morning were mostly bus people (plus me).

It was 0-5F with a ton of snow by Columbus standards. I took the main north-south street in central Columbus (High Street) all the way. I had to walk my bike on my side street to get there, but once I was there, I was fine. Most of the way, it has two lanes each way and a middle shared LTOL. At first, I stayed in the right tire track of the left lane, and slid through the mush in the right lane to let what few drivers were on the road pass. Then, I realized that I should let the cars do that. I didn't get a single honk from cars as I road down the left tire track of the left lane at about 10 mph the rest of the way.

As a side note, have you noticed how polite drivers can be in horrible weather? I wish they would act like that year round.

On the way home last night I used surface streets to cut out the unplowed section of the MUP (Scioto-Olentangy) I got back on at the 3rd Street Bridge. It appeared that during the day the city(?) had plowed the section of path heading north. They hadn't plowed the 3rd street bridge (annoying, because the plow appeared to drive on it as there were tire tracks) . I'm not sure how much further north the plow went, but I can confirm that at least the section from just north of 3rd street all the way to the Whittier boat ramp is plowed with the exceptions of the 3rd street bridge and the pavillion park in downtown.

Depending on how much snow we get this weekend I'll try it again on Monday and see how far I can go. I just find the MUP such a great way to start and end my day. As opposed to High or Neil which just stress me out. I will say I got some strange looks from my neighbors when i roled up to my door last night.

I rode around last night at about 2am in about an inch or so of snow just for fun, i got a new track wheel set yesterday and it was great flying through the fluff.

I also rode home through the big snow in Chicago, mostly taking main routes. I did take one side road for about 7 blocks, and they only plowed the cross streets, leaving a wall of snow into the interesection about a foot and a half high. I nearly ate it cause i thought i could power through.

ColorChange,

You are either one tough customer, or nuts. Perhaps both.

Congratulations on beating mother nature at her own game.

Jeff, still fat

You need a Surly Pugsley with big fat tires. I wish I had one so I could ride right after big snows.

Edit: Oh, and give up on the MUP being cleared of snow. They don't do it around here all winter. Gotta ride on the road.

Thanks again for your support guys. I made it home Friday night. Over an hour late but I made it. I learned a few things.

1. When the snow hits the bottom of your fork it's time to portage the bike! It wasn't even worth trying to push it through because the front wheel just digs in and slides out. I grabbed the top bar and just dragged it (with full panniers).
2. Deep snow with a clean surface underneath isn't that bad, it's when there are ice craters and ruts underneath that make it really tough. You are fighting steering, rear wheel traction, and trying to plow through the snow. Very difficult.
3. If you see a drift and it's not too wide, and if you can accelerate fast enough, even with 35mm tires you can get some float if you're going fast enought and sort of blast throught the drift. That was fun. When it's too wide of a drift, the bike stalls and time to drag the thing out of the drift.
4. People are nicer when weather really blows, just like Daily Commute said, they made room for me, probably out of a combination of pity and laughing at me.
5. Starting with your arse in the saddle really helps while your trying to get going. Even though you don't get much of a push, the pedal stroke is much more effective. Thanks guys.
6. I didn't think it would take me so long to get home and I didn't hear my phone. When I finally walked in the door, my wife had my route map and was going to load the kids up to come look for me. ... Ooops. I should have called.

The nordic track and weights will be getting more use until this snow melts. And yes, I would love a puglsy on days like this. I might need to get one!

Phew! I think I would have given up. Congrats on getting through. But now that you've proven that you can, would you do it again?

Only thing I hate about the winter commute/ride is the ever-changing windchill factor.
In the desert, it actually gets down to 20 degrees out here.
Some of you think that's comfy, but my ideal riding temperature is between 60 and 120 degrees.
This negative temp stuff deserves a medal if you could deal with it the way y'all say you do.
If I even walked outside during that type of freeze, I would die just by breathing cold air in.
That's why I prefer to reside in the Southwest, lots of crime, yet lots of sunshine.

John: I like saying I did it once but would I do it again? No way. If I had a puglsy I would try it. It wasn't the cold that killed my but the damn snow!

Bentstrider: I would probably die before I got out of the driveway in 120 heat. With proper gear, you can be warm at -10F or below. When your naked and it's 120, your still freakin hot. I hate heat and normally enjoy the cold.

There are plenty of advantages from the wide tires, it would be easier to stay up and get going from a stop, but, wider tires are more work to push through deep snow. Pedaling or walking. They won't float on new soft snow either.