Driving on snow

[crvc]

For racing bicycles on snow or ice the riders drop their tire pressures quite low. Would this help for driving my bug on snow? So far I haven't had problems in snow but most days I pass someone who's slid off the road. I use stock new tires 6X15 but no snow tires. At every hill it seems like I'm barely able to get to the top without the rear tires spinning. At every stop light the rear tires are spinning as I take off.

TIA

kevin

[Ol'fogasaurus]

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 739AAgMpzf

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 351AAPYz0N

No real single answer here and you should get a lot of opinions: remember, the tires do not support the car... it is the air in the tires that does. Those of us that run super low pressures are aware of that when you start feeling the tires start swaying on the rims (the best descriptive word I could think of) when the sidewall is not being supported enough. The weight of the car, and the material of the tires are another factor. The pressure rating on the tire is max air for the side wall; the tire does not know the weight of the car so it is not necessarily the best tire pressure for the car in all conditions.

[ONEBADBUG]

http://www.nokiantires.com/tyre?id=1311 ... liitta%207

Amazing what these will do.

[Max Welton]

I used to run studded snows. Now I use Blizzaks.

http://www.tirerack.com/winter/bridgestone/blizzak.jsp

Max

[E_bug]

Buy a set of good snow tires . Nokian ,blizzaks, vredestein wintrac xtreme..etc

The cost a lot less than body - frame work.

[crvc]

I'd forgotten, I've got an older pair of snow tires on a shelf in the garage. The local shop charges $50 to mount and balance but I could probably do it myself, at least the mounting.

kevin

[E_bug]

50$usd to mount and balance 2 tires? Is that at a vw dealer?

Try a gas station ?

[crvc]

Small town, one garage, gets to charge whatever he wants. Not worth the drive to the next town 30 miles away when it's minus 28 degrees. I've taken tires off in the past. I lay the tire on the ground and drive a heavier car over it, breaking the bead. Then remove using tire irons and put the snow tire on.

kevin

[Chris V]

Some guys use air-soft BB gun pellets to 'balance' their rims down and dirty...Not that you'd really benefit if the rims and tires are anywhere near true on top of 'practical' winter speeds. Snow & ice build-up inside of the wheels (compacted about the brakes) can make the effort laughable though.

[ONEBADBUG]

I used to run studded snows. Now I use Blizzaks.

http://www.tirerack.com/winter/bridgestone/blizzak.jsp

Max

Though the picture I grabbed shows the studs, part of my reason for showing those tires is that winter tire technology has made studs obsolete. The grip of these modern tires is just amazing.

[ButchW]

I find I can pretty much go anywhere in my Type 1 in the snow with just a good set of all season. Used to live in North Idaho and I'd push snow OVER the car... Amazing little machines.

Now I live on the outskirts of Seattle where we deal with a lot of hills that can have snow and ice.. I wouldn't mind a separate set of mounted snows with studs. Those would pretty much take me anywhere.

[crvc]

The weather channel predicts temps above freezing this weekend. There's been too much snow for the city to remove from streets so for now I'm driving on cracked, compressed ice with occasional open spots. I watched two cars spin out yesterday and then I spun out but was able to keep the bug out of the bar ditch. I'm going to check into studs. I vaguely remember it can be a D.I.Y. project.

kevin

[Ol'fogasaurus]

It isn't just the hills which can be pretty bad, it is the wet junk snow we get that is bad. You just have walk on the slushy snow and it turns to ice or you get layers of slushy snow over slushy snow or ice that is so dangerous. Then there is the "black Ice" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_ice frozen fog in a lot of cases) which studs don't even deal with well.

[Max Welton]

I found that ice (black or otherwise) is the only place that studs outperformed the Blizzaks. My little baja felt like it could climb trees on those things. Awesome. But noisy.

Max

[Marc]

...winter tire technology has made studs obsolete. The grip of these modern tires is just amazing.

Blizzaks et al are great in snow (particularly when it's cold and dry), but when there are hills to negotiate with ice/black ice, studs are superior. It's a rare occurrence around Seattle, but when we DO have a harsh winter I run studs all the way around and haul a couple chained-up tires in the back seat when I absolutely have to get somewhere - even then, deep/wet snow over ice has stopped me from making it up a hill and made me take the long way `round. The biggest white-knuckle events are when trying to stop when going down a hill, or trying to jump out of the track when necessary to keep from getting crashed into by an out-of-control bus or truck - Blizzaks don't help much then.