To Ride Or Not To Ride? Slippy Snow Commute?

/\/\ look closer and you'll see the turd.
I was the youngest in Nursery and nearly always the youngest in my year at school :P

Riding in the Snow is fun, it's the ice that hurts when you fall LOL. Be careful though, some car drivers may slide and hit you...

Inner and central London are fine this morning. Roads are melted by traffic. Stick to main roads, avoid the edges and cycle paths/lanes which still have slush and possible ice. Watch out for manhole covers and potholes particularly as your riding line will be a little different from usual. Vehicles should give cyclists a wide berth but probably won't. Stick to the centre of the lane and don't be intimidated. Don't lean.

And please don't think of jumping red lights. Remember, cars can skid too.

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None the wiser

Inner and central London are fine this morning. Roads are melted by traffic. Stick to main roads, avoid the edges and cycle paths/lanes which still have slush and possible ice. Watch out for manhole covers and potholes particularly as your riding line will be a little different from usual. Vehicles should give cyclists a wide berth but probably won't. Stick to the centre of the lane and don't be intimidated. Don't lean.

This was my experience this morning too. Only saw two other riders from SE10 -> EC2 ...

Even risked a bit of leaning round some snowy corners. Pushing my luck, but so far it's holding.

You fucking cunt.

Inner and central London are fine this morning. Roads are melted by traffic. Stick to main roads, avoid the edges and cycle paths/lanes which still have slush and possible ice. Watch out for manhole covers and potholes particularly as your riding line will be a little different from usual. Vehicles should give cyclists a wide berth but probably won't. Stick to the centre of the lane and don't be intimidated. Don't lean.

thank you sir!

Ready for snowball fights on the Pashley this morning...

Why didn't I think of that? Those pesky East London hoodlums won't be expecting a counter attack.

I very nearly fell off twice this morning, which kept things exciting. Main roads fine though as Clive says. Nice and light on traffic, too.

Went for a wobbly ride to the local sainsburys yesterday, just for fun really. I quite like the roadds when almost everyone is doing 15 to 20 mph.

This morning was back to normal though, other than the brown/black slush everywhere.

Had an interesting ride to work today. People in cars trying to pull out from sideroads too quickly and wheel spinning does not make for a relaxed journey. Green Dragon Lane this morning was just a skating rink. In general it was fine when I was on main roads (apart from the couple of idiots who had not realised they could not race out from a side road that was covered in slush and ice).

Clapham to Blackfriars was dull as dish water. Not owning any overshoes I took the precaution of wrapping my feet in carrier bags - needn't have bothered.

Finally hit ice on the side road up to the office, did a bit of wheel spinning then got off and walked to the bike rack.

Its supposed to be -3 / -2 from midnight tonight til eight tomorrow morning, expect it to be a bit sillier then.

Top tip. Instead of cycling on snow and ice, simply leap off a six foot ladder aiming to land on knee and elbow simultaneously. Then take a sander and with the coarsest grain apply on full power for 5 secs to knee and 3 to elbow, splash the resulting wounds with liberal amouts of puddle water and rub in gravel . Hey presto - same outcome as cycling on ice, but no damage to your bike!

Did you lean?

no, never. Actually made it in safely today but a few unintended skids on side roads gave pause for thought.

Schwalbe Marathon Winter studded tires...and be on extra guard for skidding cars :)

Cold? Pedal harder ;)

I was a right idiot cycling through snow 2 years ago on normal tires (no falls but not fun) and cycling through a storm that was so bad the streetlights was fading in/out as the electricity network was getting near breaking point.

But the bus full of grumpy people is worse, and as the kerbs aren't gritted it's either falling on the kerb or on the roads... ;(

mtb, fat tyres, low pressure = win

looking forward to an extended route home:
Regents > Hyde > Battersea Parks
Clapham > Tooting > Streatham Commons.

finish with a play in the woods. Ace.

And please don't think of jumping red lights. Remember, cars can skid too.

this is my main concern... dealing with heavy fog at the moment

I got bored of being slow after letting a bit of air out the tyres so today pumped them up to normal pressure, cars still seem a little scared but still seem to make dick moves. On the main roads through town the roads were actually fine but having people tootle along at 15/20 MPH is nice so lets not tell them, that said I did do a savage wheel spin trying to pull away on a side road.

I also did some leaning.....

Encountered lots of treacherous ice on a road that absolutely looked fine this evening. I had just ridden along tracks that looked like cars had melted everything, not really knowing how thick the ice was. Then proceeded to walk back along the same road having collected the nipper. Gave me a bit of a fright how I really didn't notice it when riding.

Don't be heroes out there kids, stick to riding only roads that are super busy. Otherwise walk.

Or get a bike that you can feel comfortable on snow with.

Don't forget to up the maintenance a bit in this shitty weather...