with a potential of up to 20cm forecast for thurs/fri is it daft to be considering using the bike for the 18 mile round trip instead of the car?

anyone else ride in traffic in snow?

have riden quite happily in the snow through the last few bouts but not sure I’d willingly go out into busy traffic on the snow. Different on my commute when its either snowy and not a car to be seen or roads passable so no snow and more traffic…

always………and usually faster than the traffic.

If as much as they are saying is coming I will probably have to resort to at least one day on the mountain bike commuting the longer back roads and offroad route, of about 22 miles each way It may take me over 2 hours but sure what the hell.

2.4″ rubber queens with low pressure were tested out in the snow of last week and they worked brilliantly much to my surprise so that will be the weapon of choice.

Where are you all based? We havent got much now forecast for here at all (Bedfordshire) and I am in Yorkshire at the weekend and checked Metcheck and they didnt have much either. Is it going to hit Scotland bad again?

Unfortunatley my 150mile round commute is too far for biking! Although when I went out on the evening in the snow last week the back roads were more treachourous due to the sheets of ice. The trails are good though as everyone seems to stay in!

In snow cars are likely to be less predictable as drivers are tools and have no idea what they are doing, having said that you could be sat in the car for 18 hours ….

Loved it last time, left the road bike at home and took the fixed/pub bike the slightly longer route along tow paths etc.

Only about a 12 mile round trip, but had loads of fun and still made it home ~20 minutes before my girlfriend who works not too far from me and took the car.

CEntral midlands forecasts range from nowt to 20cm but even 1/2cm will bring travel chaos

last year i refused to drive to work in the icy conditions because of the other cars!! saw a guy drifting across the pavement with the engine bouncing off the rev limiter. just made me think it wasn’t worth it.

with 20cm forecast (like here – Edinburgh) I am definately using the bike tomorrow for 25 mile round trip. Did the same last week and it took the usual 75 mins home. Would have been 3+ hours in the car, or a long walk if I’d come in on the bus as they stopped running at lunch time.

If there’s that much snow, then the cars will be going no-where so just ride down the middle of the road.

I used the CX bike when it was snowy, we only had about 6-8″ of snow so not too bad. Schwalbe Snow Stud tyres, back roads, canal towpaths, urban parkland route to avoid all the total muppets in cars.

The snow isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that almost no-one has any clue of how to drive in those conditions.

A couple of years ago I was driving through Yorkshire in the snow and there was a BMW in front of me doing 35mph-ish on the straights then he’d slam the brakes on at every slight bend in the road and inch round it at 5mph then gun it back to 35 again. It was SO frustrating being behind him. Idiot!

Haze – a 12 mile trip in 20 mins in snow – so an average of 36mph in snow? I think you might have been enjoying yourself too much to notice the time ;P

toby1 – haze said he got home 20 minutes quicker than the car, no mention of how long it took him.

rode in last week and the week before fine, snow is fairly grippy tbh. I doubt this predicted snow will come to much anyway, i think the media and gov, especially up here are just being panic merchants.

I will be riding to work thru traffic in the snow – I did thru all the last lot.

I did get out of the way of folk in cars if it was narrow and I do have snow tyres on.

It took me 10 minutes 😛

I am in a similar area to you Rocketdog. My comute from North Warks to South Warks is 11m, but means the quickest way is through the centre of Coventry.
That isn’t the problem, its the drivers who can’t cope with a bike on the bike when there isn’t any snow. So how will they manage when there is.
I ended up extending it to 22m, but meant it was 80% off road 8)

Yep don’t ride in snow because the drivers just can’t cope with thinking about passing a bike and snow and other cars.

Plus I can work from home

Definitely take the bike. The car will be slow and more dangerous.

If it’s snow, I use my MTb instead of the hybrid – was riding 12 miles through up to 6 inches of snow a couple of weeks ago, including one day when no cars were getting out the village

When it turned to ice, I gave up after coming off on black ice, and took the car – the main roads were gritted and safer in a car than by bike.

I’m hoping Santa brings me enough money for ice tyres, as it cost me £30 in petrol to drive to work for a week!