Yesterday and today were my first commutes since the massive snow storm three weekends ago. While it was great to get back, I rode my 700x35s on my hybrid. I hate em. So slow. A guy on skinnies barely managed to pass me...wouldn't have happened on my other bike Now, more snow tomorrow. No fast bike commuting anytime soon. I feel for you folks who have to ride studs all winter.

In all seriousness though, it was great to be back on the bike

They are pretty slow, but here's how I think about it:

1. At least I'm on the bike and not a bus, train, car...
2. Cheap insurance on ice
3. A better workout so I look good for the ladies! The ladies, on the other hand, may not feel the same way but whatever...

My thread popped your BF cherry...booya!

Yuck!

I guess I'm all in now. so to speak.

For most of the winter I have been slogging around on a 50 pound extrabike with 2 inch knobbies and studs... with the warm weather I have been able to take out the road bikes a little more and it makes such a difference.

Meh. I'm not in a rush.

I don't mind going slow, but it is messing with my mind to have improved then go backwards in ave speed and mph. This is the first year with studs for me and when I put them on I called home to whine about how slow they were. I said to my wife "I dunno I think they must be rubbing on something." She replied in a snap "Yes dear, the road."

Sometimes its a compromise between speed and comfort.

I guess I cannot relate to that argument. Either my route is smoother than most, or my steel road bike with 27x1 1/8 tires (26mm wide) absorbs vibrations nearly as well as an aluminum hybrid with x28-35. As such, the comfort thing is not a factor to consider, and the decision is easy. It would be interesting to be able to ride an aluminum road bike with 700x25 tires and see if the ride is noticeably rougher. Won't have one of those anytime soon however.

Your wife and my wife must have had the same trainer, because that's about the exact response I would get from mine....

I pump my 700x35's to 100psi and pretend they are skinnier. But I'm not in snow, and not using studs.

Communiing in winter isn't a race, it's that you can get to work and back, while everyone else is
stuck in long lines, or caught in accidents. You just have to accept that, and hope spring is
comming soon.

I go amazingly slow sometimes, even as slow as 6mph up some hills ugh. with studded touring tires, even at MAX pressure - I'm no speed demon. I've come to terms with this personally but I am sure glad I don't get passed cuz then that would get me pissed. I don't like being passed. period.

in fact it was the passing that encouraged my migration for my commuter from MTB to hybrid, to road bike.

Free training, man. You'll be that much faster when you get on higher pressure tires.

Personally I'm slow anyway so it doesn't make a lot of difference. The slowest would be if I put on skinny tires and wiped out on the ice.

Winter commuting is about safety more than speed, so true. Relax and enjoy the ride. And studs are great training! Think about the benefits of your extended saddle time, remember that you're keeping your summer fitness up, maybe even improving on it, and don't worry too much about speed. Plus, you are reducing your risk of an injury that would keep you off the bike completely.

I have Nokian Extremes on a very heavy mountain bike, and it can feel pretty slow at times compared to summer (although you do get used to that after a few weeks, and get the reverse feeling for a few weeks in spring with the rush of easy speed). However, my winter cruising speed is about 25 km/h (15 mph), so I'm still a relatively fast cyclist even with the studs, and it's all the sweeter when I know the guy getting passed can hear the velcro-like sound of my studs coming for him... oooh and then the salt in the wound as I say hi and go by; I'm a girl! If I was riding a road bike, the bike would get to take all the credit.

The engine's the only thing that matters unless I'm the one getting passed.

Oh, and Ms. hshearer: If a girl passes me it's only because I was being a gentleman, or my brakes were rubbing, or I'm in the resting phase of my interval training. Just so you know.

Just think how fast you will feel when you ride your other bike, or install wheels with lighter tires. I slog to work and back on my 30-lb touring bike all week, so my 20-lb racing bike feels like I feather when I ride it on the weekends.

I'm running these ridiculously heavy, knobby studded tires during the winter, the first time I've ever used studded tires. It's almost amusing how much slower they make me. There's so much resistance that if I just coast down this one hill on my commute, I reach a terminal velocity of about 21 mph. I've never experienced that before, coasting downhill and not gaining any speed!

Studded and/or knobby tires will slow you down, but a wider tire is not automatically a slower tire.

Amen! I've been dying to go out on a Saturday group ride for weeks. Weather not allowing it. The last unburdened weekend ride on the road bike was in November, and I was really surprised then at how easy it was (I'm newish to biking and most of it has been commuting). Fast forward three months later dealing with nothing but subfreezing temps and/or fatty tires, and I really want to see how I do on a weekender.

Note that I've been riding my fast bike most of the winter, except when it's raining...that's for my fenderized hybrid with 700x28s....only for the snow residue do I bust out the 700x35s. So, I'm not acclimated to it like the rest of you However, I have found that below freezing temps really zap my performance level. We had a fluke week of temps that broke into the high 30s/low 40s and it felt SO MUCH BETTER to ride. Spring can't come soon enough!

Several times this season, my studded tires have saved me from glare ice. Think how slow you would be healing bones, road rash etc.

The great thing about studded tires is when you take them off on the first warm spring day, it's awesome! Feels like you're riding a pat of butter across a hot skillet! So smooth.

The problem with this is that it is for a given pressure. I'm not going to pump my 700X38's to 100 psi like I would with my 700X28's, so naturally, they would drag more. By the same token, if I kept my 28's at 55-60 psi like I do with the 38's, they'd be half flat, and wouldn't be any faster. The problem being that the larger the tire, typically the lower the pressure.


Also, you're talking about weights as well. I could have my 600 gram 38's, or I could have my 350 gram 28's. What is the weight theory? Adding 1 lb of reciprocating mass is like adding 5 lbs to the frame?

Something like that anyway.

As always, bless Sheldon:

A common debate among cyclists centers on the issue of whether a wider tire has more or less rolling resistance at the same pressure. The constant pressure is proposed because it appears more scientific to eliminate this as a variable, but this is not realistic in practice. The short answer to this question is that, yes, a wider tire of similar construction will have lower rolling resistance than a narrower one at the same pressure. This fact is, however, of no practical value. If you are comparing two tires of similar construction, with the same load, and the same pressure, either the wider tire is overinflated, or the narrower tire is underinflated!

Right now, I switched to my 38's, and I'm dog slow. I went to them for (a) training and (b) mud flotation. Either I make it home, or I'm walking.

Slow tires suck!