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Advice on a winter commuter (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 month ago* by to c/bicycles@lemmy.ca
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I recently landed in a small town that gets a decent amount of snow in the winter, and commute on my bike with thin road tires. I'm thinking I want a fat bike with some nice thick tires to deal with the snow days, but local used options are limited and new bikes are fairly pricey. I have a bit more options in the used departed if I can go with more standard mountain bike. Are regular mountain bikes a viable option for commuting in snow? We had a very weak winter this last year with 7 inches all season but from some locals I've spoken too they said it can get up to 6 or 7 inches a month and only main thoroughfars are plowed, if amount of snow makes a difference in what sort of bike would be most suitable.

Appreciate any advice from those of you who ride in the snow regularly.

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[–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

I don't know how fatbikes perform on winter snow but as far as I know the standard way of commuting on unplughed roads is studded tires. E.g. put Schwalbe Marathon studded on your standard bike. I used to commute a couple of winters in Toronto and got away with regular gravel 38c tires. That said most roads were ploughed even if there were snowy sections. More hardcore friends used studded.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I'll see if I can find some studded tires narrows enough to fit my current bike. But if not I believe I can probably get away with studded tires on a mountain bike, which opens up a lot of used options for me. Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    That seems like a good plan. You can also just get a "beater" MTB bike for winter if you go that route, which you won't have to worry about as much with salt, ice, corrosion, etc. as your good road bike.

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