Riding in snow

[Beerman]

I was driving through the mountains of North Wales this evening, around Bala, on my way back to the midlands. Storm Angus (we in the UK have started naming our squalls in order to create some drama) was in full swing, and at around 1,000 ft the rain turned into heavy snow. I was dark, windy and miserable. Also, remote = no phone signal. The road was quickly gathering snow, although there were tyre tracks.

I wondered what I would have done had I been on two wheels. Stopped, I think (!), but it would have been very unpleasant. It was pretty bad in my car.

Any forum members been caught out like this, and what did you do?

Beerman

[Sasquatch Jim]

  I used to enjoy riding in that stuff.  But then I was a little un balanced back then.

[Guzzistajohn]

I got caught on trail ridge road near Estes park Colorado in a downfall of what I'll call "slush balls" one time on the LeMans. It wasn't very fun at all.

[Triple Jim]

Yeah, I think all I could do is either slow down to a crawl and be ready to put a boot down, or stop and park.

[oldbike54]

 Lived in Western OK mid 70's , snow and ice on the ground from the middle of December until the middle of March . Yes , unusual for Okieland , call me lucky . Our abode was 3 miles from where I worked , and required negotiating a couple of steep grades . Neither my wife's car , or my very old PU were any good on the ice , fortunately she only had to walk one block to the campus . So , what does an enterprising (read as broke) motorbiker do , he spikes a set of tires like the ice racers do . Just short little sheet metal screws were employed , and I had to avoid any clear pavement , although there wasn't much of that . It required riding through a few yards and some ditches , and some days were pretty miserable , but I never got stuck , or crashed , and the trip only took 12 minutes on the worst days . There was one evening leaving work at 10:00 PM when it was coming a blizzard , I just kept completely off the road to avoid any cars , except for one that drove off the pavement trying to follow , guess he thought that MC knew where it was going 

 Dusty

[Lee Bruns]

I ride in the snow, but its not always fun. KNobbies don't help much. Screws are only helpful if they can get down to the ice. Paddle tires would be the best tire to use if you were going to ride in the snow on purpose.

[Mooney78865]

Yeah, 'bout that.  Fortunately I live where it does not snow.  My experience with it has been limited since leaving Northern Europe.  Currently the only time I see it is to view it on postcards....
Although having been north of "the wall" a time or two, there is some nasty weather over there!

[Aaron D.]

At the end of my first season with my new V7 Sport (no car, that's what happens when you spend all your money on a motorcycle) the weather took a sudden change, and when I left work in the dark, over 6" had fallen and still going.

The plows were taken by surprise, and the stock tires were a hoot. I had 20 miles to ride, slipping, sliding and all sorts of things. The police actually pulled me over 5 miles from home, to see if I was OK. I told them I was, it took about 400 yards to get back up to speed with all the wheelspin.

Good times, good times.

[fatbob]

I turn around or limp to the nearest sheltered location.

[Dofin]

Fresh snow I will ride in but you just DON'T know whats underneath!  Small patch of ice and your on your ICE.  1975 I slid down the east side of the Edmund Pettus bridge (Selma, AL) cause as the signs NOW say "bridges freeze before the road"!  For some reason the city put sand on the west side of the bridge BUT Not the east side???  Oh yea I had just gotten a cast off of my left ankle, lucky I did not rebrake it. 

[Sasquatch Jim]

 With 3 inches of fresh un tracked snow on the road, I was doing about 35 when I hit a diagonal set of rail road tracks hidden under the snow South end of Seattle in the dark of night.  It kicked the bike ( XL 350 Honda with knobs) out from under me.
 My heavy winter insulation saved me from damage other than some large bruises.

[Testarossa]

They don't plow side streets around here. Two sunny days will burn off six inches of snow on the north-south streets, but patches of auto-packed snow remain where the east-west streets are shaded by buildings and trees from the low-angle winter sun. To get out to dry pavement I'll pick my way slowly and carefully across that pack.

In the winter of 1970-71 I was stuck in Cleveland with only one vehicle, the Aermacchi everyone else called a Harley Sprint. Had mud tires on it. Four or five times a month I got caught in heavy wet snow commuting 6 miles home from the hospital at midnight. With no traffic, it was doable, though I rolled/slipped/rolled through a few downslope intersections. Miraculously, never came off. The hardest part was kick-starting the thing at 25F.

[Kiwi_Roy]

Fresh snow is fine, you don't get a lot of grip but it's predictable.

Ice under snow is something else.

[wirespokes]

I think the eskimos have something like 30 different words for snow. All the different conditions and varieties that occur - they've catalogued them. What I'm saying is not all snow is the same. Some fresh snow has ok traction. Some is super slippery. I tried riding a bicycle on snow, but hit some really slippery stuff and went down. RIGHT NOW! I'd thought I could get my feet down if I started to slip... WRONG! I was down on my side with the bicycle on top of me the same time I realized I was going down.

I met a guy at the Post Office (another customer like me) who saw my bike and started up a conversation. Came to find out he'd ridden in Europe and lived there a while. I'm thinking it was someplace like Denmark or Sweden. He rode year round and studded his tires. I told him that must have been slippery on bare pavement but he said it wasn't. He only studded the tires around the outside edge, leaving the center bare rubber. On ice, he lowered the pressure so the studs could bite. On bare pavement, he'd air up and not lean too much in turns.

I don't recall having ridden in snow myself though it's possible and forgot. But I have ridden in mud through road construction and that's probably as bad. There was a bad section of road construction near Steamboat Springs Colorado where most bikes went down, me included. Spent an hour or so at the car wash cleaning up the bike and my riding gear. What a mess!

[JeffOlson]

Not a motorcycle, but still two wheels in the snow:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2016/02/08/what-is-fat-biking_n_8983490.html

[janusz]

Yep, riding bicycle on the snow is fun, but I've never tried on motorcycle. A few years back we used to MTB all winter:

[fubar guzzi]

  A few years back while livin in Denver I got me a brand new BMW to pull my brand new campem up trailer,one weekend the gal n I made a trip to Massacre cayon near the 3 corners of Co,Ne +Ks. Camped on the side of the road,about 5am I got out of my nice cozzzzee sleeping bag to relieve myself of a beer overdose----- it was so cold you could cut steel with the wind,turned on radio only to get an am station somewhere in S.Dakota where they were all hyper an sayin this is going to be a big storm an headin South.(place paragraph here) :popcorn:Got packed up,in total darkness very strong blowing wind an rain. Denver was about 180 miles away,that boys + girls was the coldest I ve ever been,ever :weiner:We arrived In Denver about 5hrs later it was blizzard condition with ? maybe 3"of wet snow on the road blowin side ways.Very bad situation. :thewife:Couple days later I visit a friend who asks-----what the hell  were you doin in that blizzard riding a moto cycle??? I said that couldnt av been me no way would I ride in snow,He said you cant shiiiiiii me,theres only two of thos campers in Denver tied to a BMW + I have the other one!!! We both laughed, it probably was the camper that gave me traction enough to continue through Denver about 4 mi.   The weather in Colorado is very unpredictable to say the least

[cruzziguzzi]

I always found that the worst aspect of snow riding was the potential for hidden ice beneath the snow.

Another issue was frozen chains/sprockets if I didn't make a point to clear them of keep them clear.

I used to ride in a lot of snow when I was in the Army. Sometimes my bikes and sometimes the taxpayer's



Todd.

[sturgeon]

Lower tire pressure helps. Reduce speed accordingly.

[Stevex]

Winter of 1980, riding my V50 from UK to Gutersloh in the then West Germany. I got as far as the West German border and it started snowing...I still had 100 odd miles to go on the autobahn. Can't remember how long it took me but do remember doing most of it on packed snow at about 5-10 mph with both feet off the pegs.

[unclepete]

I rode my K100RT into a snowstorm once in March ; westbound between Grants and Flagstaff . Just after dark rain turned into snow , big flakes covering headlight quickly , slushy on the ground so I slowed down and got splashed by passing trucks til I found the next exit . Frontage road back to Grants through a couple of inches of snow but no traffic , and motel overnight . Next morning it was melting quickly , and highway was clear with the sun out .
Another time much closer to home , I rode into a cloud in Sierra Valley on Hwy70 and found myself in a snowstorm . Dry road to snow covered road in a few minutes . Pulled over to turn around , but it was hard to cross the two lane to go back because of diminishing visibility .
The only time I set out to ride a bike on snow and ice on purpose was at home . I had an old AJS single and got a wild hair to ride it . The snow had been packed down , then melted and frozen a few times , with about an inch of fresh powder on top .  I felt fortunate to make it all the way around the block and back without breaking something , and resolved to never do it again .
 

[n3303j]

image upload

[Tom H]

This thread makes me think of the WWII films of bikes going through mud and snow and all kinds of nasty stuff. How the heck did they do it??!!?? And some bikes probably had a foot clutch???

Tom

[Beerman]

This is something of a departure from the snow question - which has been interesting - but refers to Tom H's observation below. Things were different then, as this writing by TE Lawrence - Lawrence of Arabia - written in the 1920's whilst still in the RAF, riding a Brough Superior, highlights (originally posted on Modern Vespa site):

The Road - part the second

Another bend: and I have the honour of one of England' straightest and fastest roads. The burble of my exhaust unwound like a long cord behind me. Soon my speed snapped it, and I heard only the cry of the wind which my battering head split and fended aside. The cry rose with my speed to a shriek: while the air's coldness streamed like two jets of iced water into my dissolving eyes. I screwed them to slits, and focused my sight two hundred yards ahead of me on the empty mosaic of the tar's gravelled undulations.

 Like arrows the tiny flies pricked my cheeks: and sometimes a heavier body, some house-fly or beetle, would crash into face or lips like a spent bullet. A glance at the speedometer: seventy-eight. Boanerges is warming up. I pull the throttle right open, on the top of the slope, and we swoop flying across the dip, and up-down up-down the switchback beyond: the weighty machine launching itself like a projectile with a whirr of wheels into the air at the take-off of each rise, to land lurchingly with such a snatch of the driving chain as jerks my spine like a rictus.

 Once we so fled across the evening light, with the yellow sun on my left, when a huge shadow roared just overhead. A Bristol Fighter, from Whitewash Villas, our neighbour aerodrome, was banking sharply round. I checked speed an instant to wave: and the slip-stream of my impetus snapped my arm and elbow astern, like a raised flail. The pilot pointed down the road towards Lincoln. I sat hard in the saddle, folded back my ears and went away after him, like a dog after a hare. Quickly we drew abreast, as the impulse of his dive to my level exhausted itself.

 The next mile of road was rough. I braced my feet into the rests, thrust with my arms, and clenched my knees on the tank till its rubber grips goggled under my thighs. Over the first pot-hole Boanerges screamed in surprise, its mud-guard bottoming with a yawp upon the tyre. Through the plunges of the next ten seconds I clung on, wedging my gloved hand in the throttle lever so that no bump should close it and spoil our speed. Then the bicycle wrenched sideways into three long ruts: it swayed dizzily, wagging its tail for thirty awful yards. Out came the clutch, the engine raced freely: Boa checked and straightened his head with a shake, as a Brough should.

 The bad ground was passed and on the new road our flight became birdlike. My head was blown out with air so that my ears had failed and we seemed to whirl soundlessly between the sun-gilt stubble fields. I dared, on a rise, to slow imperceptibly and glance sideways into the sky. There the Bif was, two hundred yards and more back. Play with the fellow? Why not? I slowed to ninety: signalled with my hand for him to overtake. Slowed ten more: sat up. Over he rattled. His passenger, a helmeted and goggled grin, hung out of the cock-pit to pass me the 'Up yer' Raf randy greeting.

 They were hoping I was a flash in the pan, giving them best. Open went my throttle again. Boa crept level, fifty feet below: held them: sailed ahead into the clean and lonely country. An approaching car pulled nearly into its ditch at the sight of our race. The Bif was zooming among the trees and telegraph poles, with my scurrying spot only eighty yards ahead. I gained though, gained steadily: was perhaps five miles an hour the faster. Down went my left hand to give the engine two extra dollops of oil, for fear that something was running hot: but an overhead Jap twin, super-tuned like this one, would carry on to the moon and back, unfaltering.

 We drew near the settlement. A long mile before the first houses I closed down and coasted to the cross-roads by the hospital. Bif caught up, banked, climbed and turned for home, waving to me as long as he was in sight. Fourteen miles from camp, we are, here: and fifteen minutes since I left Tug and Dusty at the hut door.

[swmckinley54]

About a year ago I was heading home to Austin from Utah when  a cold front  finally caught up with me between Tuba City, AZ and Flagstaff, AZ. I was halfway up the hill when for the 3rd. time the rear end stepped out from underneath me. I pulled over to the side of the road unsure of what I was going to do, big flakes were falling and there was 2 or 3 inches on the road. It was getting late and I thought I was screwed until I saw a snowplow go by me up the hill on the 4 lane divided highway. I started the bike back up and got in right behind him until we came to a crossover. I took a chance and busted through crossover and parked the bike and waited for the plow going down the hill and when I saw him coming I jumped in behind him and went back down the hill to Tuba City where I spent the night.

[SmokinJoe]

  I ride in snow, not often. It snows sporadically here and they do plow the roads. Usually I'm on klr, the wide block almost paddle of the shinko 805's work best for me. I've typically gone slow and even gone for the fresh stuff on the side of the road as best path sometimes. Worst for me was when soft wet snow packed up on the calipers of my 82 goldwing and froze the brakes open just as I got on Hwy 400.
Amazing how often you want a little brake action even on snow.
  I've hit flurries in the high mountains even in summer of course out west.

[Testarossa]

Brisfit racing Brough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy2cQ1o7r2U

And, for airheads, this is worth the read: Flying the Bristol Fighter http://hyperscale.com/2007/features/bristolf2bfighterdl_1.htm

Talk about thread drift.

[Moto]

"... but an overhead Jap twin, super-tuned like this one, would carry on to the moon and back, unfaltering."

Should be "JAP twin," not "Jap twin." The motor, JAP, for JA Prestwich.

A bit florid, I think.

[Moto]

I've ridden plenty in snow, and would just carry on if caught in it.

I rode all winter here in Wisconsin for no good reason and the salt thoroughly trashed my exposed metal surfaces. But that's a different issue.

Anyway, make sure to test your traction as you ride, before you need it. You can be safe but you have to be slow. Don't forget your throttle can be your friend sometimes, like on the dirt.

[SaskMick]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qnv8uo8RcY