mcfchris

1st - great topic to post!! I have in the last 18 months gone more and more towards dumping the car... as follows:

I live 15miles from my office in a semi rural area. The office is in the city. I have no nearby train station. so.

Stage 1: Sold my stupid 3ltr V6 Jag which I estimted cost 3.5k a year to get to and from the office.

Stage 2: Bought a knackered old jeep for 1k (we get snow in the winter!)

Stage 3: Bought a bike in the C2W scheme, a small lock from wiggle and a bike storage unit for home from asgard

Stage 4: Nearly died the 1st few times I tried - 15miles after a days work (all up hill seems tough)

Stage 5: after one month of doing it - took my time from 1hr 35 to 1 hr5 and I have sun tan and lst a stone in weight.

My jeep is now on a 5k miles a year insurance policy so costs just a few hundered pounds a year to run as I never use it unless it snows..

Result.. I am happy, slimmer, tanned and better off...

heywood

Wow! Way to go! Is that 30 miles every day? That quite a distance..

serra

Nice! That's quite impressive, good job!

sevenhills

Well done, I am car free. Just bought a trailer because I think it might be better for shopping and compost n stuff; and plus my mine year old thinks its great. Altho she is too heavy for it.
I live close to shops and no commute, so I should be ok.

mcfchris

Being car free is awesome....in the sun ... not great in the winter though, I did fall foul of the darkness a couple of times, but I can recommend the fibre lens rear lights form wiggle and Halfords (if you want to pay double) just the most fantastic rear light ever, looks cool and you can see it for miles.

I had thought of trying out studded snow tyres.. anybody evertried them??? I went out in the snow early this year (the big deep stuff) across local farm land on XC tyres it was the most fun I have had for years!!

mcfchris

once you get into a routine riding to work it is great, surprising how many other people do it, rain or shine!

Weetbix

rain or shine shows dedication to the cause. Providing you have some good wet weather gear and stay warm, there's really little difference between biking in fine weather or in rain - I actually quite enjoy biking in the rain, good stuff for sticking it out in the bad weather.

Juha

See the Winter Cycling forum for details, but yes, it's great fun. Snow in itself doesn't necessarily require studded tyres, if there's enough grip below the snow layer. If there's ice or the snow is hard packed, studded tyres are great. I'm a bike commuter myself, so I use the narrow kind (in my case, Nokian W106 Hakkapeliitta) that works well on road and plowed surfaces. Expect a lot of workout though, even if there's just a thin layer of snow on ground.

--J

Roody

Listen to this guy! Through this forum, Juha has had a lot to do with studded tires becoming popular outside of Finland. I know he was the one who first got me interested in them several years ago.

Roody

Winter riding is a lot of fun, and you can get real "extreme" with it if you want to. Snowbanks are amazingly soft to fall into, and even solid ice is softer than concrete.

But the truth is, most winter riding (like commuting and utility riding) isn't much different than riding in the summer. The streets are usually plowed a short time after the snow stops, so you don't need special tires if you don't want to mess with them. The times when heavy snow is falling right when you have to ride womewhere is surprisingly infrequent.

Like you mention, it is important to have decent lights in the winter when days are much shorter. every year the lights get brighter for the same money or even less. You can get adequate LED bike lights for around $50 now, front and rear.

gerv 

I've had accidents on muddy streets but I've never fallen on ice in winter. If you ride on the street, you'll be able to travel when you can't walk... since sidewalks are rarely ice-free (imagine when the pedestrians of North America rise up and start complaining!!!)

The OP seems to live in Britain (?) (losing a stone in North America is much more painful...) so winter should not be as big an issue as the icy Mid West.

Roody

I wouldn't want to lose an American stone either, but I wouldn't mind losing two of the British kind!

My remarks about falling referred to extreme winter riding, not the everyday kind of riding. I fell a couple times in my first week of winter riding, but not after i learned my craft. I did take a nasty spill in an ice storm recently--but ironically I slid out on loose road salt--not on the ice itself!

Juha

Thanks Roody. I've received great deal of useful advice myself in the Forums, but it's nice to know I've also been able to contribute. I'm still waaay in debt though.

Our cars are routinely equipped with studded tyres during winters, so it seems perfectly natural to have studded tyres for bikes too. I understand that's not the case everywhere.

--J

Roody

It's against the law to use studded tires on cars here in Michigan. (They say they tear up the roads too much, but I wonder if the plows and salt doesn't tear them up just as much). But studded tires on bikes are permitted. Everybody I show mine to is intrigued by the idea.

CrossCountry50

I am in a similar situation, I have an 11 year old son, work from home and am close to stores, bank etc. Went car free June 1st