First ride today following Tuesday night’s snow, which dumped around 8 inches of stuff roughly the texture, consistency and weight of liquid cement. I took the Rockhopper, which is looking like it’s going to become my go-to snow bike. Just need to pick up a set of studded tires, which I’ll do next winter. In snow, I’ll ride it with regular pedals and power grips, and the rest of the year I’ll ride SPD pedals with the Kenda tires that are on the bike now. I seem to have solved my seat post slippage problem, by wiping some of the grease off the seat post and tightening the quick-release clamp a bit. The problem may have been that I was pushing the QR lever in too far, causing it to overshoot the point of maximum tightness and start loosening up again. It’s a 1993-vintage clamp, and the lever doesn’t conform to the seat post curvature like newer clamps. It may make sense to replace it with a standard bolt-on clamp. But in any case, I’ve ridden twice now with no slippage.
I had to hike the park access road today. The consistency of this snow is really nasty. It’s wet and heavy and the top had iced over to a crusty, crunchy glaze. My 2″ tires weren’t having any part of it. The wider tires made this bike easier to walk through snow than either of my road bikes, though. I wore rain pants, and was glad I did. Without them, snow would have gotten into my boots, and my feet would have been wet and unhappy. Rain pants need to be standard issue with more than around 3-4″ of snow on the ground.