Good winter tires can make the difference between life and death (ie: sliding under a car).
My recommendation: Don't trust your life to a couple dozen plastic zip ties. If you're dealing with ice on a regular basis, pick up some Schwalbe Ice Spikers. 304 tungsten steel studs per wheel. They're expensive (about $100 each), but I've never had a fall or lost a stud in 4 years of daily winter biking... and I live in Ottawa, a city that regularly experiences -20c weather (cold enough to make plastic very brittle).
When its MacGyvered, it's temporary. Remember last year? Snow hit parts of the south-eastern US and state emergencies were being declared... for a few inches. That's when this is probably practical.
Compare this to what London, Ontario has been facing. It's basically had a years worth of snow before winter has even started. Places around it had over 2 meters of snow fall within a period of a week.
I know here in the GTA I regularly see over 3ft of snow in the bike lane in winter. I think if the plows had shifted over 2 meters off the road surface, even the most determined biker will say fuck it when the bike lane has snow higher than them.
Also -5c can make 'all season' rubber become hard, brittle and reduce grip. So regardless, if you're biking in true winter conditions, you're better off to get winter tries made of actual winter rubber that will stay soft (usually) down to -35c.
Yes, but my need to ride my bike in an emergency is just about nothing. And my bike is my main mode of transportation.
Also, taking that stuff off looks like it would be just as much work as putting it on.
I've never ridden in snow except as a lark in Portland, OR (I was safe from cars then cause Portlander wouldn't drive in the snow).
If I did live where it snowed, I think snow-tires or don't ride makes sense. Perhaps you could carry this stuff on a road trip but that's the only use I could possibly imagine.
Yeah. I ride all year round in Minnesota. Either having a beater bike that's winter-ready or winterizing your regular bike is a must.
I have multiple bikes for multiple reasons: Long hauls, short daily commutes, exercise, and winter/off-road riding.
I also make sure to keep enough gear around for different conditions that may come up. Normally I don't ride with fenders, but if it's raining, I'll grab the winter bike, which has them and replace the snow tires. 10-15 minutes of work in the spring and I'm ready to go through the summer.
That said, I like the temporary hack here, provided it stays temporary (and is only done on bikes with disc brakes). Seattle doesn't get a ton of snow, so there's not much reason to keep studded tires around.
> Also, taking that stuff off looks like it would be just as much work as putting it on.
If you have a good pair of snips it'll take you literally a second or two to get them off. However if you're using a crappy dollar store pair of scissors, it'll take you 5 minutes.
Given that you should be storing enough non-perishable food for 2 weeks in case of an emergency, there really shouldn't be a reason to go out if you get freak weather beyond your local norm.
Strangely enough, on the same blog where the story was originally from, there's an entry about Schwalbe Marathon Winters[1] a few days later. Aptly titled "A more professional solution"…
What make these better is a higher stud count, studs on the side knobbles, studs are embedded and won't fall out easily, and they have a lower rolling resistance than full gnarly off-road winter tyres.
Oh, and when Peter White refers to aggressive riding... he means skidding. If you skid a studded tyre on a clear surface you can rip the studs out and damage the tyre such that you lose the benefit. When you're on clear roads, avoid skidding.
Somewhat off topic, but does the term MacGyver mean the same thing to everyone here? In my mind, they're always temporary/in a pinch solutions, and the parent's post could go unspoken (though I'm glad he spoke it). Macgyver solutions work to get you to the point where real solutions are now possible. In other words, a subset of hacks (you can have long-term, or superior to 'standard' hacks).
I mean, even MacGyver didn't invent his own Swiss Army knife everytime he needed it... though he probably did once.
I've always used the term to mean "a temporary, short term hack that will serve the purpose until we have the time/resources to create/implement something that can be long term."
Tires have always been one thing not to skimp on. I've done the junkyard tires once- never again. This is even more important on 2 wheel vehicles, which aren't inherently stable.
In short, if there is one thing in your life you don't try to get away with as cheaply as possible, make it tires. (though, I suppose with bicycles it's not quite as life-or-death as motorcycles)
Nokian is the new parent brand name for Hakkapeliitta, which is a Finn tire company with a long and proud tradition (particularly as it concerns ice and snow tires). Never tried the bike tires -- the area where I grew up prohibits bicycles from November 1 to March 31 -- but their car tires very rarely went "square" (anybody who lives where -40 happens will know what I mean).
Yah the bike in the image has disk brakes. you can see the disk at the centre of the wheel. Disk brakes have "handlebar" brake levers, but the braking force is directed by small pads that grind against a disk - just like car brakes. They can be mechanical or hydraulic based.
By hand brakes, you mean rim brakes. Disc brakes are operated by hand, and they work. The only brake I can think of that's not a hand brake is a coaster brake.
The pictures are a bit blurry and I'm not up to date on my hipster brake technology, but he seems to have hand brakes. With enough clearance, this shouldn't be a big problem.
I've done it before on bikes with coaster/drum brakes and on the rear wheel of a fixed gear, they do actually give you a bit more traction in snow.
You can put the heads on the tread side for studdedness but then they break right the hell off the second you hit clean pavement. You can also put the heads on the rim side for a plain paddlewheel effect. They still like to break off easy, especially with cheaper zipties.
Overall it's not worth it at all, since they don't last and don't help on ice where it would actually matter. Even true carbide-studded tires from Nokia or Schwalbe aren't really worth it unless you live somewhere with ice on the ground from freeze-thaw cycles for months out of the year.
If it's just slush, relatively narrow normal tires will cut through to the pavement just fine. If it's snow, larger volume tires at lower pressures helps more than anything, and knobs are relatively pointless (much less studs) — you just want to float on top of it like sand.
Just switched to studded tires on my bike today (Schwalbe Marathon Winter). They make a HUGE difference. With my old tires I nearly hadn't any grip at all today. With the studded tires I can break on black ice and it feels like breaking on dry concrete.
Yes - they've been somewhat expensive. With shipping I've payed about 110 Euros. But I'll prefer investing some money in good tires, compared to crashing and landing under a car.
How about getting a pair of decent tires? When riding my bike during the winter my usual problem is the fact the bike lanes become the dump site for the snow and mud mixture or the new parking lane.
This is clever, but I'd be curious to see how long the cable ties will last before dulling/breaking off. If you plan on riding with any regularity in the winter on snow/ice, the $100 for a set of studded tires is well worth it. They'll last multiple winters and don't present issues with changing tires or using rim brakes.
By the sounds of it, Seattle is very similar to Vancouver. We average about two weeks of snow a year - roughly one week in November/December, then another week in January/February. Each time there's only about 3 or so inches of snow. Usually it's not a problem on main roads, but this year we got a little more snow than usual. The zip-ties would come in extremely handy for the several days of on-road-snow we actually have to worry about. For us Pacific Norwesters, $100 studded tires is overkill.
I was told about this method several years ago by an old Harley biker. He said zip ties should be in your bag incase you get stuck off-road or surprised by some snow. They won't last long, but they'll get you out of a jam.
I've never used 'em, but I keep a package of extra-long zip ties in my bike's saddlebags just in case.
Seems like a good hack for shoes too (admittedly, just the toes section). This might come in handy as we in Ireland are about to experience some severe snow/ice storms over the next week and are perpetually unprepared for the snow which briefly hits each year. I'll be trying out the shoe-variant at the weekend!
PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
Not recommended. The cross-chain links will gradually wear from grinding on the pavement to the point where they'll break. When that happens, the loose chain can get snagged in the frame (or--even worse--the fork) and lock up the wheel. I went over the handlebars when this happened to me on the front wheel several years ago.
Carbide-tipped studded tires made by Schwalbe, Kenda, or Nokian are definitely the way to go. We've operated a bike delivery business for the past 18 years in the upper Midwest US and have tried almost everything. Nothing else works as well nor as reliably. The tires will last a few years so the cost per year is not huge.
I did this once- it's a lot trickier to get that set up when you haven't got disk brakes, lemme tell ya. The chains wore out a lot faster than I expected, to the point that it wasn't a practical solution.
I'm fairly certain they had to pack up an entire streets worth of snow to take those pictures. Seattle hasn't gotten shit for snow this year, unless I somehow slept through it.
My recommendation: Don't trust your life to a couple dozen plastic zip ties. If you're dealing with ice on a regular basis, pick up some Schwalbe Ice Spikers. 304 tungsten steel studs per wheel. They're expensive (about $100 each), but I've never had a fall or lost a stud in 4 years of daily winter biking... and I live in Ottawa, a city that regularly experiences -20c weather (cold enough to make plastic very brittle).