Well, we seldom get snow here, so they all laughed when I bought a pair of metal studded "ice tires" this past summer, but I was laughing this morning when the streets were covered with ice and snow from one of the few winter storms Albuquerque has seen in a few years.
Here are a few photos taken this afternoon after the snow had already begun to breakup and had even melted on the streets... but, not before I had a chance to take my work / commuter bike out for some fun on the frozen roads earlt this morning.
http://pictures.aol.com/
The bike is, at core, a c.1983 Peugeot, and I've come to discover it has some unique features not often seen on a road bike - either new or old old or new. For example, the possibility of mounting wide 700c x 40mm tires, AND fenders! and alernately, as today, the 700 x 37 knobby studded ice and snow tires, again, still with fenders. Plus, still no pedal/shoe and fender overlap!
I'm now running it with 9-speed hubset and 11-32 cassette - matched up with the original 42x52 crankset, stem-mounted Huret friction shifters, and the original Weinmann 750 centerpulls (with pads extended almost to the maximim length allotted). I wonder firstly, what odd usage Peugeot had in mind for this humble road bike, and secondly why no one else seems to have used this for their own bikes as well. Or, perhaps many did and I foolishly always overlooked the mundane, practical, cheaper models.
A cheap thrift store buy, with an overall design good enough to simply beat-out the geometry of such revered retro-grouch "all rounders" as a Rivendell... one which would in fact have cost me 100 times the amount of this timeless $20 workhorse of a frameset. Here are the details on this particular refurbish project - a bike which I had literally tried to give away several times without success... fortunately for me.
http://community-2.webtv.net/
So, while I do have a few nicer and older bikes which would also handle massive winter tires and wheels, and even have suitable fenders mounted, this will certainly be my ride for future romps in the ice and snow. The nice bikes will all stay home warm and dry, while this bad boy ventures out into the elements, with his foolish rider.
Ho-Ho-Ho!
Bob Hanson, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA