My Slush-Mobile

I finally got too worried about wrecking the steel frame of my Trek 620 by riding in snow, slush, and salt all winter. Plus, its 32mm tires are a little skinny for the icy, crusty, rutty conditions.

Being a good collector of bikes, both useful and useless, I happened to have in the garage an old Trek 830 "mountain bike" that I picked up at the university surplus store. Big fat steel frame (not lugged, of course), 26" wheels with wide rims, straight across handlebars, knobby 50mm tires. The frame is seriously too small for me, so I had the seat post jacked way up (but the handle bars still way down).

The low handle bars, super knobby tires, and lack of fenders and rack made this a less than ideal commuting bike. But those were all problems that could be solved relatively easily and inexpensively. I bought some Wald steel fenders (fat, black, shiny, and only $29) and some semi-slick tires with knobs on the outside, and I raised the handlebars with my stem extension (replacing some of the cable housing that was now too short). I also added a rack that I had lying around, strapped a basket onto the rack, and voila! Slush mobile winter commuter bike.

The bike's maiden voyage was yesterday. The sidewalks were completely covered with ice ridges and many of the roads were covered with ice slicks. The fat tires (inflated to 38 lbs) handled the ridges and ruts nicely, and they gripped pretty well even on the ice slicks. Most important, it was fun to ride. I wouldn't want to ride it in Paris-Brest-Paris, but for the daily 5-mile commute it's pretty fun.

This morning, I rode a sidewalk that was covered with ice chunks thrown up by the snow plows (in addition to the usual icy ruts). It was work but fun. It felt like off-road riding.