Last winter ride

Snow melting along the streets and re-freezing into slippery sheets, daylight saving time turning the ride dark again...

It may have been the last real winter ride, since temperatures are rising well above freezing and aren't expected to drop much during the nights.

This Anura trike has ordinary tires on 16" wheels;  it's fine for icy patches on level ground or gentle sloped.  The one with 20" wheels and studded tires was on an icier route that had some significant hills -- and doing very well there.

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Gearing up

From Blogger Pictures

Minneapolis plows many miles of bike paths, including the excellent Midtown Greenway, but as of March 5, there are still many icy patches, and riding a two-wheeler can be challenging.  Greenspeed's Anura trike comes with 16-inch wheels, for which there are no commercial sources of studded tires, so when we read about replacing the rear wheels with 20-inchers, we immediately realized that we could make a formidable ice bike that way. 

This is the Anura prototype trike that we bought in the spring of 2007.  A differential allows both rear wheels to be driven, which gives it extra traction on ice and snow.  Riding home from the bike shop where we had the wheels rebuilt, I deliberately took it up an icy hill and was able to make it to the top even though the path was actually too narrow, and the wheels were dragging against the snow on the sides. 

At least two more March snowstorms are looming out to the west, so we're expecting to have plenty of opportunities to test this little snow machine!