I mentioned it before! I don't like riding to work on spiked tyres. More than 99% of the road will be asphalt; you would only need the spikes for isolated patches. And it's worth it if you don't fall over and break your collarbone; that's a big win. But it does mean that almost 100% of the road you are riding around with an enormous extra amount of friction. And it really is hard work!
When it got cold I kept going on my normal tyres. I won't put the spiked ones on unless I am absolutely sure I need them. But one of these days, there was more black ice on the road than I expected. I had to be quite careful! But it worked out in the end. And I biked back the same way; I knew I had to be careful because I had seen on the way to work where the ice was. Not all of it was gone. But I managed to negotiate everything successfully.
It got warmer again. And then cold again. Again I set off my normal tyres. And again I had to be a bit careful. And all went well until I got to the stretch of the road that had been the worst the previous time around. And this time, it was worse than that! Quite some sheet ice, sometimes over the entire width of the road. Quite often you might be able to escape the ice if you move to the middle of the road. There's not that much traffic there; one would expect to get away with that. But that day it just wouldn’t do.
This time I chose on several occasions to just walk. It just looked so slippery! And at one point, I only _just_ managed to keep my bike (and myself) upright.
I only just managed to make it in time for my 9 AM meeting with a dissertation student. And luckily, this time I had to bike back from main campus, so I took a completely different route back. And it had got a lot warmer in the meantime as well. The coming days had predicted rain. To be honest, I hope I don't need the spiked tyres this winter. But it's only December and I already had two icy days! There probably will be a lot more to come…
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