Bike Lanes vs Bike Paths

On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 4:02:21 PM UTC-8, Mark J. wrote:
On 2/3/2019 2:59 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-02-03 14:41, Steve Weeks wrote:
Here in Chicago, the bike lanes are rarely kept plowed, which puts me
in the narrower-by-the-width-of 2-bike-lanes traffic lane. On
narrower streets, this is a real problem. Even on wider streets where
there are no bollards or any other physical obstacles between the
traffic lane and the bike lane, the bike lane is usually not plowed.
Sort of un-clear on the concept.


One solution but I'd get studded tires:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIpqfIXzKkQ

My impression of the video is that the snow being plowed has very low
moisture content, i.e. it doesn't weigh much. It's also "virgin"
un-walked-upon snow. When I lived in Colorado, I shoveled some of that;
could have cleared it with a push broom - or probably a leaf blower. We
get much heavier stuff in Western Oregon.

What Jay said about refrozen, walked-upon (especially high moisture
content) snow is on the money; it's hard to describe riding on that
stuff, except that mostly you can't (or at least I can't), and that's
with studded mountain tires. I refer to it as "craters of the moon", if
the craters were around 2-3" in diameter with tall, hard sides. If the
craters (footprints) are few, you can go around 'em, but that's not what
you see on separated paths. They become edge-to-edge crater fields
pretty fast.

Possible snow coming to the Willamette Valley tonight, but the
accumulation should be so low that studded road tires should do it.
When the "craters" are only 3mm deep, they're not so troubling.

Mark J.

Ice and snow in my neighborhood this morning. I didn't prepare and don't feel like throwing on the studs. I'll drive. I've got snow tires, and I haven't been off the bike for over a week.

-- Jay Beattie.