A Snowy Nighttime Bike Ride (Comments: 5)

December 3rd Snowy Bike Ride from Adam Durand on Vimeo.

Above, you’ll find 2 minutes of video I took during my ride last night. Yesterday was my first commute on snow-covered streets, and it was a learning experience!

I currently have wide road tires on my bike. I tried putting knobby mountain bike tires on over the weekend, only to find that they don’t fit below my fenders. So I may be stuck riding with the road tires for now – they did OK yesterday, and I believe they worked even better today after I followed Keith’s advice in the comments to take some air out of the tires.

Sticking to the sidewalks

I’m changing up my riding style now that the roads are all slush. I stick mostly to the road when traffic is low, but when motorist presence picks up I jump up onto the sidewalk and do the best I can in the deeper, irregular snow. I’m also finding that even though the surfaces of the side streets are less predictable, the reduction in auto traffic is well worth it.

The milk-crate-on-the-back-rack strategy works well enough for me in fair weather. But based on my run to the grocery store last night I’m realizing that riding a bike with a high center of gravity is dependent largely on my ability to work up speed fast enough to stay balanced. After loading thirty pounds of groceries and gym clothes into the crate, there were very few stretches in my two-mile trip back home that I could actually ride my bike instead of walking it. It felt like a long walk through the snow, but I enjoyed every bit of it.

Next time I’ll bring a backpack. Or I’ll buy an Xtracycle.

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