CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Mr MeepMeep has just reported that there are still some serious patches of ice where the sun and/or vehicle wheels haven't got to them.
When we lived up Drumbrae, I cycled all through the 2010 fortnight of snow. Seem to recall I had >2" wide knobblies on. Don't remember my experience of the descent and incline (other than no offs) but do have general memories of the commutes being pretty fun!
Note to self - must procure another mountainbike.
I have a spare wheel with the studded tyre on it. Easier to swap on and off than a tyre. Neither last winter nor the winter before induced me to flip much. One week both times I think. THough I have been sticking to main roads when it gets slippy as they get gritted.
Cheers. chdot. I actually have a pair of Marathon Winters that I bought after one of the big freezes a few years back, but by the time I got them it was too late - naturally - so I've never used them. Not so much of an evangelist for the Contis that I would get rid of the studs, though - you never know!
Work colleague just written to thank another work colleague who escorted her along the slippery towpath and on to the office this morning after they'd both stopped to help a chap who'd come off his bike and whose bike had gone into the canal...
Ooh, just noticed on the Schwalbe site that they now do Winters in 42-355.
They seem to be covering off more small wheel sizes by only doing one type of tyre for each size.
E.g. Winters for 30-349 and 42-355 and Marathon Winters for 42-406.
I doubt any UK retailers will stock 42-355s. Perhaps need to buy from Germany. Anyone got any recommendations of overseas tyre sellers? Or are there any UK shops that could order these?
Any Brompton owners got experience of fitting spikes? Hankchief's experience sounded rather grim - I assume that was for 42-406s? But maybe Marathon Winters will be worse than plain Winters?
@cb I think the two kinds of Schwalbe winter tyre are identical except for the number of studs. The Winters simply have two rows of holes in the tyre which would take the studs to turn them into a Marathon Winter.
Fitting either will be an equal challenge...
Warning from my other half who reckons it is worse out now than it was this morning.
aww great...I hated it this morning; didn't enjoy the ride at all.
Guess i'll gingerly head home and try to better my two 'offs' from this morning.
I would be interested in hearing about how the towpath has developed, assuming that anyone is actually heading back along it today, although I am beginning to suspect that I may just write cycling off for the week given a continued possibility of ice *and* the impending storm.
@cb pretty sure hank chief was fitting his marathon winters to his Helios so 20" wheels. Seem to be worse than 'normal' sizes.
I'm not good on tyre sizings, but brilliant bikes often seems to stock sizes that others don't. And they're very nice too.
Pretty icy around Midlothian on paths and some side roads. I had the day off but decided not to bother with cycling. Even walking was interesting though.
"Anyone got any recommendations of overseas tyre sellers?"
Last year Uberuce put in a bulk order to bike-discount.de to keep a few of us in spikes. Anyone wanting anything to do with dynamos usually ends up ordering from rosebikes.co.uk.
After a twitchy experience on the canal tow-path this morning, I contacted Clarence and copied in Councillor Gavin Corbett asking if it could be gritted. He in turn contacted the local team, and Scottish Canals, who responded with this:-
Scottish Canals do not grit the towpaths as a standard measure. With limited resources we concentrate on access routes with the highest need and potential for risk (ie approaches to Health Centres, primary schools). Unfortunately, with over 100kms of canal towpath it would not be feasible or practical to grit the entire network.
A list of our priority areas is published on our website and we advise all users to adapt their behaviour to suit the local conditions.
Take care out there.
Cheers
Colin
@jdanielp
You will not hear my bell on the towpath tonight. I'll be uprighting it through town on the biggest, widest roads available to humanity.
@Greenroofer's cast-off studded boot goes on the front wheel the minute I get in.
"Greenroofer's cast-off studded boot goes on the front wheel the minute I get in."
Don't you mean "In the first 60 minutes (or so)'?
Havacuppat first.
I got my 20×1.60 marathon Winters from Acycles.
Re the canal towpath. This route is an essential part of the active travel network in Edinburgh and it really ought to be the council who are responsible for keeping it open in wintry weather (regardless of who is contracted to actually do the work). No-one would expect a third party landowner to be responsible for keeping a mainroad usable. The situation will become clearer when Boroughmuir HS opens as the towpath is part of its travel plan as described in the planning application.
@chdot
Good idea. I'll get the teapot, the orange pekoe and my octopus-themed giant teacup out.
"I'll get the teapot, the orange pekoe and my octopus-themed giant teacup out"
Careful, you might forget what you're getting ready for.
Three out of the 5 regular cycle commuters at my work had falls this morning (not me). One bruised hip, one bruised knee and 4 stitches in an arm! Yikes!
I suppose the question is - will it freeze tonight or was this a blip?
"will it freeze tonight"
Don't have much faith in weather forecasting, but seems so -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2650225/today
Might be warmer by morning - but crucial thing is frost pockets and bits the sun never gets to.
Might also be that rain washes away all the salt in the next couple of days.
(With extra wind on Wed - so likely to feel extra cold.)
Agreed, wind chill makes a difference.
Just can't be bothered putting them on. After dinner it is.......
Ding ding round 2 of Hankchief vs studded tyres.
So having the shame of pedestrianising to work having left the bike where the tyre went kaput, I got home, got the roof rack out of the garage, put it on the car, drove to Murrayfield to pick up the bike, returned home, took off the roof rack and went into battle again with the studded tyres.
I got the defunked tube out easily and saw that some of the wire beading was exposed and sticking into the tyre, so I chopped the wire off and put a piece of polystyrene onto the end and put in a new tube. I don't know how, but the tyre went back on very easily ( maybe linked to the exposed beading). So far so good.
Pumped it up and stood back to admire my handiwork... BANG goes the inner tube. Arghhh. So out with another tube and repeat the process - Fortunately I still had the knack and it went on painlessly.
I'm guessing that the bike had learned its lesson. If it doesn't work it gets left behind on a cold and damp street corner - if it behaves I will leave it in a nice dry & warm(ish) garage or basement.
BBC now saying 'won't' freeze!
Be careful, the air temperature may be above freezing but you can still get ice.
The ice looks pretty well established this evening. There is no way it will melt with the temperature overnight being 1-2 deg. Be careful out there!..... Or get studded tyres ;-)
1 hour 20 of fun and games installing the marathon winters (using fingers only) and making brake / computer changes - although half the issue with mine is there is very little clearance to mudguards so its fettlers heaven.
Anyhow, regardless of what the BBC says, I doubt this is the last of the freezing weather this winter............plus I am not taking these off until March.
If anything its extra exercise up hills !!
-0.6 degrees on our home thermometer atm
Bbc not keen on giving low temps but using the wee snow symbol heavily wed-fri
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