The MacGyver Approach to Winter Biking (Zip Ties)

http://www.dutchbikeco.com/_blog/Dutch_Bike_Co_Weblog/post/Seattle_Snowpocalypse/

by MikeCapone • 16 years ago

146 48 16 years ago

dutchbikeco.com

jrockway2• 16 years ago

Interesting. Seems reasonable.

TimMontague2• 16 years ago

This requires a bike that doesn't have hand brakes, otherwise the zip ties would get caught on the brake pads.

digitallogic• 16 years ago

Also, it is gonna be even more of a pain to change a flat.

jemfinch• 16 years ago

One benefit of snow is that it protects from a lot of the things that would ordinarily cause a flat.

tomjen32• 16 years ago

You just need to have a cutting tool on you at all times, but you should do that anyway since a knife is very useful.

mhd2• 16 years ago

The pictures are a bit blurry and I'm not up to date on my hipster brake technology, but he seems to have hand brakes. With enough clearance, this shouldn't be a big problem.

maximilianburke• 16 years ago

I think the other poster he meant disc brakes vs. centre pull/cantilever cable-actuated brakes.

barkingcat• 16 years ago

Yah the bike in the image has disk brakes. you can see the disk at the centre of the wheel. Disk brakes have "handlebar" brake levers, but the braking force is directed by small pads that grind against a disk - just like car brakes. They can be mechanical or hydraulic based.

imd• 16 years ago

By hand brakes, you mean rim brakes. Disc brakes are operated by hand, and they work. The only brake I can think of that's not a hand brake is a coaster brake.

slug• 16 years ago

How about getting a pair of decent tires? When riding my bike during the winter my usual problem is the fact the bike lanes become the dump site for the snow and mud mixture or the new parking lane.

T_S_2• 16 years ago

Great hack! Not mentioned: They have to be yellow (as pictured) to get the desired effect.

Cable ties are also used to ward off magpies in Australia during the nesting season.

RK• 16 years ago

I had to look up this magpie thing, because it sounded really bizarre.

http://www.bv.com.au/bikes-&-riding/10754/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES_n4DgJDHs&NR=1

T_S_2• 16 years ago

I've been personally swooped there. Not fun. It only lasts a few weeks a year. Pretty much only in September.

enjo• 16 years ago

Ahh dang it.. this was going to be my answer for hacking the system if I ever needed to apply to YC:)

schultzor• 16 years ago

This is clever, but I'd be curious to see how long the cable ties will last before dulling/breaking off. If you plan on riding with any regularity in the winter on snow/ice, the $100 for a set of studded tires is well worth it. They'll last multiple winters and don't present issues with changing tires or using rim brakes.

GrooveStomp• 16 years ago

By the sounds of it, Seattle is very similar to Vancouver. We average about two weeks of snow a year - roughly one week in November/December, then another week in January/February. Each time there's only about 3 or so inches of snow. Usually it's not a problem on main roads, but this year we got a little more snow than usual. The zip-ties would come in extremely handy for the several days of on-road-snow we actually have to worry about. For us Pacific Norwesters, $100 studded tires is overkill.

chaosmachine• 16 years ago

Good winter tires can make the difference between life and death (ie: sliding under a car).

My recommendation: Don't trust your life to a couple dozen plastic zip ties. If you're dealing with ice on a regular basis, pick up some Schwalbe Ice Spikers. 304 tungsten steel studs per wheel. They're expensive (about $100 each), but I've never had a fall or lost a stud in 4 years of daily winter biking... and I live in Ottawa, a city that regularly experiences -20c weather (cold enough to make plastic very brittle).

mhd2• 16 years ago

Strangely enough, on the same blog where the story was originally from, there's an entry about Schwalbe Marathon Winters[1] a few days later. Aptly titled "A more professional solution"…

[1] http://www.dutchbikeco.com/_blog/Dutch_Bike_Co_Weblog/post/A...

buro9• 16 years ago

The Marathon Winters aren't really that great... bad for cornering (no studs on the sides) and the studs have a tendency to fall out.

Much better are the Nokian W 240.

These can be got from Peter White Cycles who have a great selection of winter tyres: http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/studdedtires.asp

What make these better is a higher stud count, studs on the side knobbles, studs are embedded and won't fall out easily, and they have a lower rolling resistance than full gnarly off-road winter tyres.

Oh, and when Peter White refers to aggressive riding... he means skidding. If you skid a studded tyre on a clear surface you can rip the studs out and damage the tyre such that you lose the benefit. When you're on clear roads, avoid skidding.

icegreentea• 16 years ago

Somewhat off topic, but does the term MacGyver mean the same thing to everyone here? In my mind, they're always temporary/in a pinch solutions, and the parent's post could go unspoken (though I'm glad he spoke it). Macgyver solutions work to get you to the point where real solutions are now possible. In other words, a subset of hacks (you can have long-term, or superior to 'standard' hacks).

I mean, even MacGyver didn't invent his own Swiss Army knife everytime he needed it... though he probably did once.

tomjen32• 16 years ago

To me it just means that you violate one or more laws of physics :)

But now that I think about it, that would seem to be implied, because if something is lasting, it would work with and not against reality.

zacharycohn• 16 years ago

I've always used the term to mean "a temporary, short term hack that will serve the purpose until we have the time/resources to create/implement something that can be long term."

electromagnetic2• 16 years ago

When its MacGyvered, it's temporary. Remember last year? Snow hit parts of the south-eastern US and state emergencies were being declared... for a few inches. That's when this is probably practical.

Compare this to what London, Ontario has been facing. It's basically had a years worth of snow before winter has even started. Places around it had over 2 meters of snow fall within a period of a week.

I know here in the GTA I regularly see over 3ft of snow in the bike lane in winter. I think if the plows had shifted over 2 meters off the road surface, even the most determined biker will say fuck it when the bike lane has snow higher than them.

Also -5c can make 'all season' rubber become hard, brittle and reduce grip. So regardless, if you're biking in true winter conditions, you're better off to get winter tries made of actual winter rubber that will stay soft (usually) down to -35c.

joe_the_user• 16 years ago

Yes, but my need to ride my bike in an emergency is just about nothing. And my bike is my main mode of transportation.

Also, taking that stuff off looks like it would be just as much work as putting it on.

I've never ridden in snow except as a lark in Portland, OR (I was safe from cars then cause Portlander wouldn't drive in the snow).

If I did live where it snowed, I think snow-tires or don't ride makes sense. Perhaps you could carry this stuff on a road trip but that's the only use I could possibly imagine.

Definitely desperation time.

kmfrk• 16 years ago

Interesting. Are these things also available for citybikes?

blasdel2• 16 years ago

The Schwalbe Marathon Winter would be appropriate. A couple of the models from Nokian (spun off from Nokia) would be good too.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

Tires have always been one thing not to skimp on. I've done the junkyard tires once- never again. This is even more important on 2 wheel vehicles, which aren't inherently stable.

In short, if there is one thing in your life you don't try to get away with as cheaply as possible, make it tires. (though, I suppose with bicycles it's not quite as life-or-death as motorcycles)

VBprogrammer• 16 years ago

Toilet paper, condoms and bin bags are another couple of things I recommend adding to your list of things not to scrimp on.

blasdel2• 16 years ago

I've done it before on bikes with coaster/drum brakes and on the rear wheel of a fixed gear, they do actually give you a bit more traction in snow.

You can put the heads on the tread side for studdedness but then they break right the hell off the second you hit clean pavement. You can also put the heads on the rim side for a plain paddlewheel effect. They still like to break off easy, especially with cheaper zipties.

Overall it's not worth it at all, since they don't last and don't help on ice where it would actually matter. Even true carbide-studded tires from Nokia or Schwalbe aren't really worth it unless you live somewhere with ice on the ground from freeze-thaw cycles for months out of the year.

If it's just slush, relatively narrow normal tires will cut through to the pavement just fine. If it's snow, larger volume tires at lower pressures helps more than anything, and knobs are relatively pointless (much less studs) — you just want to float on top of it like sand.

hop• 16 years ago

Some much better DIY bike chains: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/11/diy_bicycle_tire_ch...

These could probably be improved further by ditching the zip ties for something reusable like velcro.

watchdogtimer• 16 years ago

Not recommended. The cross-chain links will gradually wear from grinding on the pavement to the point where they'll break. When that happens, the loose chain can get snagged in the frame (or--even worse--the fork) and lock up the wheel. I went over the handlebars when this happened to me on the front wheel several years ago.

Carbide-tipped studded tires made by Schwalbe, Kenda, or Nokian are definitely the way to go. We've operated a bike delivery business for the past 18 years in the upper Midwest US and have tried almost everything. Nothing else works as well nor as reliably. The tires will last a few years so the cost per year is not huge.

stavrianos• 16 years ago

I did this once- it's a lot trickier to get that set up when you haven't got disk brakes, lemme tell ya. The chains wore out a lot faster than I expected, to the point that it wasn't a practical solution.

hopeless• 16 years ago

Seems like a good hack for shoes too (admittedly, just the toes section). This might come in handy as we in Ireland are about to experience some severe snow/ice storms over the next week and are perpetually unprepared for the snow which briefly hits each year. I'll be trying out the shoe-variant at the weekend!

eru• 16 years ago

Socks over your shoes also work well.

jac_no_k• 16 years ago

Research and recognition for this: http://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2010

PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.

gst• 16 years ago

Just switched to studded tires on my bike today (Schwalbe Marathon Winter). They make a HUGE difference. With my old tires I nearly hadn't any grip at all today. With the studded tires I can break on black ice and it feels like breaking on dry concrete.

Yes - they've been somewhat expensive. With shipping I've payed about 110 Euros. But I'll prefer investing some money in good tires, compared to crashing and landing under a car.

msisk6• 16 years ago

This works with motorcycles, too.

I was told about this method several years ago by an old Harley biker. He said zip ties should be in your bag incase you get stuck off-road or surprised by some snow. They won't last long, but they'll get you out of a jam.

I've never used 'em, but I keep a package of extra-long zip ties in my bike's saddlebags just in case.

bobx11• 16 years ago

Good luck changing a flat.

jrockway2• 16 years ago

His support van is right behind him. Swap the wheel and change the tire in the shop.

If you're commuting, just buy studded tires. Amazon has them and two-day shipping is free :)

burgerbrain• 16 years ago

I'm fairly certain they had to pack up an entire streets worth of snow to take those pictures. Seattle hasn't gotten shit for snow this year, unless I somehow slept through it.

JoeAltmaier• 16 years ago

You call that snow? It gets that way in April here.

The MacGyver Approach to Winter Biking (Zip Ties)

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