This is my 6th winter of riding. Third winter with heavy Nokians and today was my first fall.

A weird combination of really smooth ice with about 1/2 inch of dry snow over the top made the commute this morning *really* interesting. The back wheel was spinning up even minor hills. A couple of times I hit a lump of something and almost lost the front wheel.

Then I did lose the front wheel... really quickly.

I have never seen conditions where the studs could not grind into ice. But today it just wanted to spin out.

Hope you weren't hurt too bad. Still, one fall in six years makes you a pretty good and or lucky bike rider. The small amount of snow on the ice probably kept the studs from biting into the ice. It was probably at just the right temperature to pack under the tire instead of parting away. Unusual conditions that don't occur too often.

One good thing about losing the front wheel is that you don't have time to stick out your arm. That happened once on mud and I got a good wrist sprain. Today no problem. Just went somewhat sideways...

Yeah, sometimes conditions are just right (er, wrong). It's usually fairly deep brown sugar that makes things darn squirrely for my W106's. It's times like that when I wonder if more studs would even help.

Glad you emerged unscathed.

When there's just enough snow to pull your studs off of the ice, falls can happen. In ten years of riding heavily studded tires, I've fallen three times. Light, cold snow on top of smooth ice can be treacherous, and while experience and balance will usually carry you through, sometimes **** happens. Still, any crash that you walk away from...

I fell down about two weeks ago- twice!

We had the most perfectly clear lakes around here(no snow on them) and people were out ice skating all the way across from one side to the other. I had seen plenty of videos of guys riding on ice and thought I'd see how far I could get. Turns out I could get about 300 yds! I fell hard on my left side, but landed on my hip/shoulder and it wasn't a big deal. I got up and turned around to ride back to shore. I pedaled about 10' before I fell on my other side. This time I stuck out my arm and landed on my elbow. At that point my ego was more bruised than anything so I walked back to shore and biked the rest of the way home by street.

After both of the falls I didn't feel that bad. My elbow was a little sore but that's it. Then, about two days later I was brushing my teeth and my hip went out. I ended up at the chiropractor and he popped things back into place. He told me that the falls must have pushed me out of alignment and I just needed a trigger to set things off- in this case it was a cough. Live and learn.

I did figure out that my front tire never slipped (Continental Spike Claw 240), but my rear wheel slipped out on me both times (Continental Spike Claw 120). Looking at the tread on the back tire I don't know what I was thinking as the spikes are all out on the side and not down the center like my front wheel.

Jon

What tires were you running? Were you running clipless pedals?

How cold was it? The colder the ice, the harder it is for things to penetrate it - such as the studs on your tires.

That's what happened this morning to me. I was riding my bike in my driveway in 4" deep snow before I shoveled just it to see how it would handle. I was turning right and lost the front wheel on ice underneath the snow. The snow bank on the side broke my fall, so no big deal.

Someone mentioned to me today the one advantage of falling on ice. Nine times out of ten, you'll fall and slide. Which is what happened to me. On ashphalt or concrete you will also slide, but the results aren't pretty.

Still a friend of mine's son recently had a tumble on ice, after a particularly rainy day. Broke elbow and wrist slightly.

gerv,

Glad to hear you came out of the fall OK.

I've run Nokian Extremes in the conditions you describe (several inches of snow over glare ice) and can tell you they don't grip either. The snow seems to "float" the studs above the ice so the studs can't dig in and do any good.

Labrat

Yup, i've had the tires fail to bite enough into hard glare ice with sunshine melted slush on top. The only thing to correct this is longer studs.