Snowy TNUA
When your bike starts shedding parts, it’s a good time to call it a night.
I left the Tuesday Night Urban Assault ride early tonight. The strangest combination of things caused a fender nut to come loose and rub annoyingly on the tire.
I have a bit of toe overlap on the Portland. Toe overlap is when your toes extend past the front tire. It’s not a problem but can become scary in very slow speed turns when your foot rubs the tire.
In my case, my toes also push the fender into the tire. The knobs on the sides of the snow tires reached out and unscrewed the nuts retaining the end of the fender. Fortunately, no calamity ensued, but I have to order a hardware kit now to replace the lost nut and retaining screw. And the fender will rattle until I do.
It’s unfortunate because I was kinda diggin’ tonight’s ride. We’ve had the first decent snow of the season and I was having a good time learning how this bike is different from last year’s winter bike, and dealing with both good-natured ribbing and words of both amazement and encouragement that I was on a snowy TNUA ride with a road bike.
Actually, after I let some air out of my tires and settled it to it, even I was amazed at how well I was doing. I was climbing hills, crossing berms, stopping on ice and riding well out in the deep stuff, all without any trouble at all. I could have gone another hour or two.
I do have to adjust my riding style on this bike. It’s hard using drop bars and keeping most of your weight back on the saddle. That’s a matter of practice. I also have to loosen up a bit, especially when the front end shifts sideways.
It does this with alarming regularity when following ruts and the packed snow at the bottom of them shifts. If the whole road is packed, I’m fine. If the whole road is loose, that’s even better. The combination of packed ruts and loose snow beside them is what causes the problem.
I had similar trouble last winter, but with that bike most of my weight stayed on the saddle. The drop bars shift my weight forward which seems to compound the problem. Letting half the air out of the front tire and about a third out of the back one helped.
Ultimately, I think the weight transfer issue is the reason you rarely see a drop bar bike in the snow. I can put on snow tires, I can lower the gear ratios and I can do all sorts of other things to winterize the bike, but I can’t make it an upright.
As the winter progresses, we’ll see how much of a problem this is. Worst case, I’ll just haul the other bike up from the basement and swap the snows to it. But I think a lot can happen with practice.
The other thing I have to do is slow down and become comfortable with riding at a reduced speed. Road bikes are all about going faster, and I’ve made the most of that for the past eight or nine months. The bike seems a lot happier in the snow down around 8-10 MPH. It’s me that has trouble being content at that speed.
Meanwhile, I’m getting the clothing thing figured out much earlier this year. It is easier to find the right combination of things with bike clothes. Tonight, I wore a wicking baselayer and wicking long-sleeve t-shirt on top, under my AlertShirt ANSI Class-2 windbreaker. On bottom I wore my bike shorts and kneewarmers, a wicking baselayer and cycling tights.
Head was under my winter cycling beanie, hands were in my Specialized summer-weight long-finger gloves, then inside my Cannondale Windfront gloves, and feet stayed plenty toasty with crew socks, Lava Sox, and my new Lake winter cycling boots.
It was perfect for tonight’s temps in the lower 20s and single-digit MPH winds. I was easily able to adjust between too warm and too cold just by changing my exertion level. In fact, until I got home, I never gave a thought temperature. I was just that comfortable. I think I could easily extend that comfort into the teens without making any changes.
Too bad my fender started unscrewing itself. Were it not for that, it was a perfect night for cycling.
December 12th, 2007 at 4:37 pm EST
It seems to me that you might want to get those drop bars switched out and install straight ones for the winter. Maybe there is too much change when you do that.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:17 pm EST
Bruce,
You’re having too much fucking fun biking! It’s disgusting!
But I’m so glad you get a kick out of it!