Winterwise, all bets are off

Apparently, the combination of La Nina, the volcano in Bali about which we hear nothing anymore, and climate change in general, has brought us wild fluctuations that defy routine.

Christmas brought snow, followed by subzero nights and days where the temperature stayed below 10F for the most part. I recorded nighttime lows of -14F, -15F, and -10F before leaving for Baltimore to copilot the cellist back to her school-year employment in the Baltimore area.

Baltimore was as cold as a slightly below normal New Hampshire January. Water mains were bursting all over the city. There were more than 50 of them while I was there. And, of course, the plight of Baltimore city schools has made national news.

I was snowbound in Baltimore when barely an inch of it fell during the "Bomb Cyclone." Helplessly I watched the storm swirl over my home, while was stuck 500 miles away. My train to Connecticut kept getting canceled. While my part of New Hampshire got less than 10 inches, It was followed by a frigid wave with lows down around -20F, and relentless winds.

After just enough time for me to clear the driveway, porches and decks, and rake the roof edges, the temperature mounted steadily above freezing before vaulting into the 50s, with heavy rain. Nearly all of the snow disappeared. The fog was like trying to see through a sheep.

After another little dip toward zero, the temperature settled at an unspectacular but still frozen level. The four or five inches of snow we got on Wednesday made the roads slippery, but did nearly nothing to reopen the cross-country ski trails.

My prediction, based on the pessimism born of 31 years living in New England, is that the next shot of bitterly cold air will arrive around the third week of March, followed by large storms of heavy, wet snow. Spring snow is horrible for spring skiing, because it is always clumpy, and never manages to firm up. You need a decaying snowpack that has consolidated over a couple of months to get the legendary best conditions. My forecast is based on the idea that I will be jonesing hard for the bike commute by then, so what can nature do to make that highly inadvisable. Last winter went a bit like that. I had started riding base miles in February and early March when winter came stumbling back with a series of storms that ended with a 10-inch snowfall on April 1. It was mid April before I started a somewhat regular schedule of riding.

Whatever happens, we'll creep in this petty pace from day to day. Time to creep off to work now.

Sometimes the old days really were good

A couple of bike tourists have left me their Sevens to reconfigure with 9-speed cassettes, triple cranks and barcon shifters. This is after a few years riding with the carbon compact cranks, 10-speed cassettes, and SRAM Double Tap shifters originally installed.

They came in originally because one of the shifter paddles had snapped off on one of those SRAM Double Tap shifters, they way they are prone to do. SRAM offers the shifter paddle as a replacement part, but only below the point at which they always snap off.

Any of my regular readers will know how I scoff at the brifter concept for anyone but a dedicated racer. The fact that spell check produces the word "grifter" when it flags brifter as a misspelling seems highly appropriate. Oh boy! More expensive crap to break! And don't even think about fixing it yourself.

Accustomed to vehicles that can't be repaired and that use mysterious assemblies that function perfectly until they suddenly don't function at all, modern riders have been well trained to avoid doing much of their own maintenance and repair. You can still change a tire, dial in your index shifting, and lube a chain, but don't mess with anything else.

As part of the design process, I pored over gear charts to come up with cassettes that would offer helpful gear intervals int he ranges these riders will actually use. I came up with a good range on a 9-speed 13-36, with 26-36-48 chainrings, that had no duplicates (one, actually, but not in a combination one should use) and gave closer spacing in the low range than the high range. Unfortunately, we would have to buy at least four cassettes, plus eight or ten Miche cogs, to get two cassettes with the desired cog sizes.

Here's where the olden days were better than nowadays: When cassettes were introduced by Shimano around 1980, they offered a rider complete flexibility to spec and assemble gear ranges suited to individual need or desire. This could still be true, but some bean counter figured out that it was cheaper for the company to offer specific cassettes with unchangeable ranges. The free-range cog has nearly vanished.

Miche offers complete custom capability, but only from 11 to 29 teeth.

My customers could use some sort of dinky crank with a tiny BCD, but 64-104 or 110-74 are widely available in case of a breakdown in the boonier parts of the world. So topping out at 29 is not the best option.

Having discovered that the cogs for my ideal cassettes will be expensive to collect, I'll dig back into the gear charts and figure out how to make the best of what the industry forces on us. With the War on Front Derailleurs, some crazy wide-range cassettes are showing up. I sketched out a few ideas for an 18-speed cassette, just to try to get ahead of the trend by a year or two. Maybe out of all the horseshit and chaos I'll find something off the shelf that does most of what I had put together in my original design.

Crankwise, the workhorse Deore triple seems like the best choice. I like the old reliable Sugino XD 600, but I wonder when the square tapered bottom bracket axle will finally disappear. I should start stockpiling.

It's the time of year when the weather can change radically from one day to the next. It snowed all day today, only netting a couple of inches. The National Weather Service outlook for December sets up parameters that could bring snow, but their three-month outlook inclines toward more drought or possibly rain. Attempts to park and ride or park and ski fail because no one plows out places to park. The trip to work becomes all or nothing.

For the past several years I have put studded tires on my path commuter, and then either had bare ground or deep snow to deal with. Installing them is still the signal that winter is really here.

Spring Snow

"Spring snow is poor man's fertilizer" is an indirect way of saying "This is bullshit!" After a day in the 70s last week, it's about 12 degrees here this morning, after a day of steady snow and temperatures in the 20s.

It is beautiful, sparkly fluff. It will be washed away by Thursday's torrential rains. The rest of the forecast shows temperatures appropriate to early March, with a threat of hypothermic moisture on every day.

Into the great unknown

With several days left in February, the shop has started making the transition to bike season. It will never be an immediate, drastic shift, because the weather and people's schedules don't work that way. It's always a series of steps. But this is probably the earliest we have ever started them.

For a couple of winters in the 1990s we had a combination of low snow and a surging mountain bike culture. We did a lot of winter repairs for the die-hards who were experimenting with studded tires for the frozen lakes and hard-packed snowmobile trails. That subsided on its own, as we got into a pattern of snowier winters and mountain biking continued to evolve away from the masses.

While the bike component never goes away completely, there is enough of a heritage of real winter sports around here to pull most of our customers into those traditional seasonal pastimes.

This year, the ski trails have not survived the series of rain storms that has pummeled us. So here we are, in the "dead of winter," dead in the water. And then we're slithering on ice when the water we're dead in freezes with the next cold snap.

We have no choice but to ring the dinner bell for the restless cyclists who have been asking when we're going to get busy on the greasy side of things. There must be three or four of them altogether.

I hate trying to work on stuff in the "wrong" season, because the shop is not set up for the slick routines of efficient work flow. Handlebars snag on rental skis. Grease and oil can pollute ski wax. Bikey bench grime is no place to lay a new ski for bindings to be mounted.

Based on the forecast a week ahead, we can look forward to more cycles of dry cold and warm wet. March could continue the trend, or flip it and bury us, initiating a return to ski business. This late in the season, that doesn't mean much in the way of income, but if you're trying to play the touring center game you can't ignore snow before the beginning of April.

For now, I'm preparing rental skis for storage, and rental bikes for the summer ahead. Instead of telling callers they'd be better off waiting for April to bring in their repairs, we're telling them to come on down. February looks like April. That does not guarantee that March won't try to pretend it's January. We're seeing the legendary New England fickle weather elevated to psychopathology.

In a vacuum

I suspended the park 'n' ride commute when the cellist came home for her winter break. She only had ten days, and lots to do, so I was not going to take time getting home from work.

The day after she arrived she went right into a midnight mass gig at a Catholic church about an hour away. And they do mean midnight. We ended up getting to sleep around 3 a.m. But the gig was a hoot. She was working with a skillful keyboardist/choir director/vocalist. Watching them crunch arrangements together during a rehearsal right before the show -- I mean the service -- was the best part of the trip.

The cellist and I rode on Christmas Day. It was 60 degrees.

On December 29th it snowed. That ends my park and ride because I have no place to park. And if the path gets rutted up and refrozen it's slow going for anyone, even on 4-inch tires (which I don't have).

The new month in the new year brought the usual town government meetings, too. So, a day at a time, I waddle into the winter, one day after another with no exercise except a little splitting and carrying of firewood.

The lack of skiing turns my job more janitorial. The edict came from on high: vacuum the entire shop. The bag was already pretty hefty. After I finished, it weighed 8 1/2 pounds. That's at least 3 1/2 off the record of 12-plus, set a couple of years ago, but still a respectable effort. Above 7 pounds, the vacuum barely picks up anything anymore. And it's hard to maneuver at that weight.

One interesting customer ordered a Surly Cross Check with some custom modifications. Additional accessories and tweaks will go on for months.

Two inches of rain forecast for tomorrow will bomb the ski trails back to November. Then no one knows...

I decided years ago that the legendary New England winter was not the average. Climate change has increased the number of wimpy ones, but the real epics, with snow drifts to the second floor, were probably always anomalies. Legends are made of extremes. The winter may not always deserve fame, but New England will always find a way to be annoying.

Fat Bike Ethics

When an activity based on self-reliance becomes popular, self-reliance is one of the first casualties. It happened with backpacking, cross-country skiing, winter hiking, mountain biking, kayaking...people are attracted by some element of the sizzle, but still expect someone else to cook and cut the meat. Where a few people would come in, seeking to learn the skills and master the craft, the masses come in looking to own the gear, get the tee shirt and project the image.

Fat biking is taking its turn in the spotlight now. It's still a narrow spot, but interest is on the rise. And the most frequently asked question is, "where can I go ride this thing?"

Operators of cross-country ski areas have to tell fat bike owners whether their machines are allowed on touring center trails. The bike advocates consider this a reasonable question. Some of them get a little snivelly when the answer is not an immediate and emphatic yes.

The fat bike of today started out a decade ago as an expedition bike. It was a go-anywhere machine for someone who might want to ride through the interior of Alaska, or across a desert, or some other place where a rugged machine with ample traction could make its methodical way from place to place. But, like so many other pieces of expedition and exploring equipment, the bikes proved fun or useful in less drastic situations. The subculture took hold.

Fat bikers: ski touring centers owe you nothing. Fat biking evolved in the wild, away from groomed skiing areas, and it flourished there for a decade before the public began to take notice. A fat bike was a tool for riding in venues that already existed, not a novel toy based on a mere idea, which then had to find a place in the real world. Fat biking venues already existed and continue to exist.

The wide tires may make little or no impression in some trail conditions, but in others they gouge up the trails so that re-grooming would be needed to make the trails usable again for the skiers for whom they were built. In some conditions, even normal skier use hacks things up pretty well. But tire tracks create a new pattern of disruption that can seriously impact trail conditions.

If a touring center allows limited fat bike use, someone has to patrol to make sure those limits are respected. Fat bike riders will need to pay fees sufficient to offset the expenses generated by their presence. But it doesn't end with the exchange of funds. The ski area has to patrol the trails, assess conditions and repair them as necessary, in addition to the normal maintenance and grooming schedule familiar from ski operations.

Many ski areas are making some effort to accommodate --or even attract -- fat bikers as another source of income. With natural snow becoming unreliable, cross-country areas have to figure out how to monetize what they've got, or put in costly snowmaking systems that still rely on sustained temperatures below freezing. So fat bikers look like a viable cash cow. But there's no escape from the logistical realities of trail maintenance when snow brings skiers and current fashion brings fat bikers at the same time.

In our area, uncommonly sustained low temperatures have brought deep powder this year. This is snow that does not pack readily to a firm surface for skate skiers, let alone solidify enough to allow fat bikes to pass without digging deep into the corduroy. It may not look like much damage to a non-skiing bike enthusiast, but it might as well be a ploughed field for someone rocketing along on skinny skis.

In other years, or even the later part of this one, conditions could change to favor the fat bikers. Whatever happens, those who take up the super wide tire need to remember that their machine started out as another way to travel freely, not another way to depend on the continuing efforts of trail groomers who work for someone else. Sure, the bikes require a somewhat compacted surface. Such a surface can occur naturally or artificially. But just because someone is creating such a surface doesn't mean they'd be tickled to have you on it. Nor are they a bunch of killjoy old fuds if they seem reluctant to fling wide the gates.

When winter collapses and takes the ski industry with it, within a decade or so, fatties can rule the Earth. Bide your time. Be kind and polite to the cross-country skiers as they enjoy their declining years.

Off the bike

At least I got some use out of the studded tires before circumstances shut me down for a while.

For Thanksgiving I rode the rails to visit destinations along the Northeast Corridor. Hopped the Downeaster from Dover, NH, to Boston. Picked up the southbound train to Old Saybrook to visit my parents for a couple of days. Continued to Baltimore on Friday to visit the cellist in Maryland.

I considered bringing the Traveler's Check with me, but I did not think I would use it enough to make the awkward load worthwhile.

The train is good for musing. 

A snowstorm chased me out of New Hampshire. The storm dumped about a foot of wet snow on top of warm, moist ground. Power went out. My cat sitter had to burrow her way into the driveway, because I don't use a plow guy. Warm weather after the storm condensed the snow where it had been undisturbed, but plow drifts and shoveled piles turned into concrete.

Deep snow eliminates the parking for my park 'n' ride commute. Even if it hadn't, I came right back to a zoning board hearing after my first day at work. I wouldn't have had time to ride anyway.

Another snowstorm greeted me when I returned to New  Hampshire. It was no 12-incher, but it added two or three. Then another small one tossed on a few more. Drizzle saturated everything, making it sticky, heavy and slow to move. The snowblower would only eject it a few feet at best, a few inches at worst. Packed-down masses under the newly fallen stuff stopped the machine. Some of them I could hack with a metal shovel. Others I had to leave.

I cleared the mouth of the driveway and about a quarter of the total area in about the time it would take to do the entire driveway if I had been able to get rid of the Thanksgiving accumulation when it arrived, rather than a week later.

December's low sun means even a day above freezing doesn't melt a lot of snow. The ground beneath it is not frozen, but the snow is thick enough to preserve itself. It encroaches on the road. Riding becomes impractical, even though this kind of snow doesn't do much for winter alternatives.

Now that I'm back from my brief wander I can figure out the winter's routines. Got no money right now, but I've been there before. I feel pretty rich just to have a warm house, a hot shower, enough food and some interesting beverages.

If I don't get to do something outside I guess I'll have to dust off the rollers and do some other exercisy type stuff. And there's always firewood to split.

All that stuff is water

Road crews have used heavy equipment to shove back the encroaching snowbanks along some sections of roadway where regular plowing had reached its limit. The towering piles of icy chunks look impressive, as do the dramatic icebergs at the sides of larger parking lots.

Even where the special effects have not enhanced the effect of a big snow year the regular plowed banks run wide and deep.

Another snowstorm is coming on Wednesday.

All that stuff is water. When it thaws rapidly, rivers flood and the land turns into a quagmire. When it thaws slowly, rivers merely rise and the land turns into a slightly shallower quagmire for a longer period of time.

For the bicyclist spring thaw means deep, salty puddles at the base of the snowbanks. It means wet, briny grit spraying up from your tires onto anything not protected by full fenders. It means potholes and pavement cracks. The frost heaves are much less of a problem for bicyclists than motorists because we can maneuver among them. The mostly rounded ones feel like waves. But the fault lines where upthrust has lifted one section of pavement higher than another deliver rim-bending jolts to the inattentive rider.

The rail trail I might use for a few early-season park-and-rides on studded tires will turn into a swamp once its packed covering of ice and snow gives way to warming temperatures. Sections of it drain well and dry readily, but other stretches notoriously do not. And if Wednesday's storm brings glop that never really sets up, the only way to pedal the path will be on a fat bike.

I will speak more of fat bikes in a separate post. I don't have one and can't justify the expenditure to get one, but I like the concept well enough. And even a fat bike will bog down in deep mashed potatoes and applesauce.

Time to head out on the pavement on a fixed gear with fenders. Wear waterproof shoes. Things are going to get messy. But before that we can still use the snow for its various purposes until it undeniably turns into nothing but a sloppy liability.

What a grunt

The studded snow tires turned out not to be the best tool for the snowy path yesterday. Even though there was no more than a couple of inches of snow in the deepest areas, cold temperatures had kept it dry and unconsolidated.

The ride started promisingly enough on a well-packed dirt road. The bike slithered a little, but the tread or the studs caught quickly as the surface varied between loose and frozen. But on the trail nothing had packed the snow. Foot traffic had made the texture irregular, but nothing was firm. The bike fishtailed and jerked. The soft surface ate all my energy, like running in loose sand. With a temperature in the teens I was soon soaked with sweat from the effort needed to keep the bike moving and maintain course.

This went on for the better part of six miles at an average speed 50 percent slower than when the trail is firm and fast.

I planned to offer to buy my coworker Jim the craft brewed beer of his choice from Beveridge's, a craft beer (and soap) shop in our building, if he would drive me back to my car at the end of the day. There was nothing fun about the ride. I mean the weather was nice, the sun was out, but the relentless labor to gain every yard when the route was essentially downhill all the way to town indicated that the return trip, uphill, on conditions unlikely to have improved, would probably be much slower. I'd been pushing it, leaving the dog home by himself for the normal length of my bike-commuting day. Now that day looked like it could be at least an hour longer.

Unfortunately, Jim had walked to work. To make the situation worse, late customers kept us more than half an hour after our normal closing time. I would have to get myself back up that hill.

Somehow, heavy foot traffic on the inner portion of the path had managed to pack it somewhat better, though it was still irregular, requiring constant steering. I was tired from the morning grunt and the long day at work, so the improved surface only provided a temporary advantage. I was soon sweaty again, even with fewer layers on than in the morning.

With steady effort I reached the car after almost an hour. I tossed the bike in and hurried on home. The dog had endured eleven hours of confinement without springing a leak. He was the hero of the day. He got pets and treats until bedtime.

A day like that emphasizes the "do or die" aspect of rural bike commuting. With basically no transportation alternatives that don't involve inconveniencing another person, the rural commuter has to choose a mode and make it work. I could have whined to people until I finally got someone to give me a lift, but it might not have gotten me there any sooner. And I saved the beer money I would have used to bribe Jim so I can spend it on myself. So many beers. So little time.

A fat bike might have handled the soft stuff. I don't have one to try, so I don't know if the rolling resistance of a four-inch tire would cancel out the flotation in the bothersome fluff. And I know from interviewing a fat bike rider who was doing winter commutes that the fat tire does nothing for you on ice. Then you need fat studded tires, which can retail for more than $200 each.

A woman on cross-country skis was not going faster than I was, but she wasn't working nearly as hard, either. Who would have thought that a scant inch or two of snow would yield a skiable surface? And the cold is preserving it amazingly. It's kind of the perfect setup: not enough snow to close out the parking at various trail access points, but enough to slide on if you have some beater skis. If I can get myself going early enough tomorrow I'll give it a shot.

A weekend storm may bring a real accumulation. Then, ironically, I won't be able to ski anymore because I won't have a place to dump the car. And until the snowmobiles pack the rail trail I won't be able to bike it with my merely normal-width studded tires.

Nature always has another trick.