steel wheels for winter tyres

Yorkshire been below or at that for the last week and a half. It was dipping to -5 in the mornings setting off for work last weekend.

Well, it definitely has an effect on the VFR's temp. sensor.

You go out on two wheels at temps approaching freezing?

Windchill is the change in *apparant* temperature to a hot body. It makes no difference to the actual air temperature, otherwise you would have ice forming on vehicles when the air temperature was well above freezing.

The air nearer the building is probably warmer.

Only if there's a reason to - usually either whilst the car's being serviced or because I know I'll get stuck in traffic / struggle for parking at my destination.

If only you could read German:

at least look at the pictures. They are testing tyre performancein a hockey stadium and get differences. If what you say was truethere would not be such differences between winter tyres, let alonesummer ones.

One of the tests they do is stopping from 50 kmh on ice. Average winter tyres (the average of a group of modern winter tyres) on the same car take 35m to get the car stopped as opposed to 43m for summer tyres. An obstacle at 35m is hit with 22kmh by the car with summer tyres.

You are wrong I am afraid.

F.

Plenty of us do. Modern fabrics; cordura, goretex etc. are fantastic and make riding a bike year round less of a trial than it was 20 years ago.

Not thinking about the cold, more the personal safety, the thought of ice patches and a bike is scary

Pussy.

No, just like life

That's why I mentioned Cordura... slides nicely without abrading too much!

Cool. You can do similar stuff with the car though. On snowy roads pull the handbreak around bends. Gives a nice effect indeed. Is done as part of driver training where I come from.

Fred

Also sprach snipped-for-privacy@nohotmail.com (Fred):-

I imagine this is acheived by using softer compounds - which at the lower temperatures are about as hard as the summer compounds in their working temperature range. If so, you could expect winter tyres to wear very fast once the weather warms up.

The trouble with the UK is that we don't a climate as such - just lots of weather, and in much of the country - or at least for much of the population, having tyres suitable for ice might only be appropriate for a few days a years - the rest of the time they're an expensive irrelevance.

Round here in Slopshire we get about a weeks worth of icy roads a year if you're not out before 8am-ish.

Also sprach "Tim S Kemp" :-

It's manageable. You get very good at spotting black ice - which contrary to popular belief isn't invisible at all.

Also sprach snipped-for-privacy@nohotmail.com (Fred):-

First thing I do when it snows is shove off to a big car park in the car

- to play.

I am with Fred on this point. The difference between standard tyres and winter tyres is amazing. I do a lot of travelling around Europe and the USA, and have done in all different weather conditions. To see a standard tyre almost collapse under the pressure of braking in colder weather is something to behold I can tell you.

I always change the tyres on my vehicles when the temperature starts to drop. It's always done me proud when the vehicles around mine start to slip and slide when the try to slow down to late for corners and things, and I continue to drive past with plenty of grip to control the car, or my van, around them.

I go with changing the whole rim with the tyre already fitted. They don't take up much space in the tool shed, and can be changed over in a couple minutes with the right tools.

Driving with ice chains on the car wheels? Now that's a totally different matter.

Sometimes there is no alternative. I didn't take my car test until I was

26 (die-hard biker or so I thought) so I used to have to make the 15 mile ride to work regardless of snow, ice etc. Admittedly its not very nice. Fresh snow isn't too bad to ride on but black ice is a nightmare.

I think I fell off once in the snow with no damage to me or the bike. I did have to abandon a journey from Wales to Lincs and check into a hotel when my throttle cable kept freezing up in the open position when riding in thick snow. That was "interesting".

: Paul Giverin wrote: : : > The last 4 days I've driven to work (Thursday to Sunday) I had the red : > warning on for the whole trip. This was at 6.30am. : : Windchill.

Thermometers can't measure windchill. If they could, they'd be braking the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Ian

A few years ago I was going caving in Box stone mines around New Years Day. There was about 3 inches of snow on the ground and we were at the top of a fairly steepish hill. There was a buzzing noise and appearing round the corner came a pizza delivery boy on his moped, both feet skidding along the road to maintain balance. I'd love to know if he made it intact to the bottom.

Fair play to him I wouldn't have tried it.