Friday, October 28, 2005

100 reasons to ride in the winter

The members of BikeForums have counted down the Top 100 Reasons to Ride in the Winter. Some of the ones I like:
    More layers = less pain when you wreck.
    Eating as much pie as you want during the holidays.
    You get to laugh at people in their cars stuck in the snow.
    Listening to your triathlon/road buddies complain about how boring riding the trainer is all winter.
    Not having to scrape your windows before you can drive home.
    Being able to whip a snowball at the car that just cut you off.
    Being able to whip a frozen water bottle at the car that just cut you off.
Do you ride in the winter? What do you like about winter riding?

5 comments:

  1. being from oregon, rain. especially when it's early in the winter and still sort of warm. you start out a ride thinking it might not rain. then it begins to lightly drizzle and you start hucking it out to make it to your destination. you're so involved in the whole thing you forget to realize you're already totally soaked.

    having been a messenger in cleveland, one thing i can say in support of riding in the winter is that i never had a problem being too cold. but being too hot was sometimes an issue. that's really not a big issue. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I should ride in the winter but I don't... can you get nobbly tires for 700x38c bikes? That or I should just get a mountain bike since I've been coveting one for a few years now :) But mostly I am lazy, and during college I lived like .5 blocks from my moderately sized campus and now in grad school there is a glorious bus line (which I can usually tie or beat when riding, timewise) which basically goes from the front door of my house to the front door of my building. I guess I should at least be riding until the snow flies!!

    I should also really ask my dad these questions, seeing as how he is a bike shop owner ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. You can get knobby cyclocross tires and even studded road tires. You'll want to be sure your frame has enough clearance for larger and wider tires.

    ReplyDelete
  4. you lose surface area with a knobby tire. it actually gives you less traction. get the widest slick tire your bike can handle. and get some really beefy, heavy, kevlar belted sorts of things so you can't have to worry about dealing with flats with wet tires in the cold.

    studded tires are the way to go if you have ice to deal with, though.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Winter? What's that?

    We don't get no snow here near the beach. ;-D

    ReplyDelete