and there arose an exultant sound

Winter!

We are getting a real one this year.

I have tried to make it through the winter on my bicycle as I have in the past. Due to the nature of my job, with its variable and far flung work locations, bicycle commuting is a challenge at best, and impossible at worst. Be that as it may, when the fates conspire to give me a location for the day close to home, I take my bike.

Which brings us to winter!

Winter!

We are getting a real one this year.

Thus far, we have had a lot of snow, a lot of ice, and a lot of thawing (with the extra special glare ice which comes with rain and a thaw on packed snow). And so naturally it was this year, as opposed to two years ago when winter gave Southern Ontario a miss, I tried to use as my primary winter tire on the bicycle a non-studded tire set.

This was not a mistake as they perform well, but it does make for some unnecessarily interesting rides to work. Slippy kinds of rides. The combination of huge snowbanks, packed down MUPS, and narrower lanes and ice have made me come to the conclusion that perhaps those Schwalbe Ice Spikers I have sitting there on the basement floor would serve me better if they were on the rims of my bicycle.

Now I used these tires all last winter, and loved them, but since then I have swapped out my frankenfenders for a stock set of unmodified planet bike mountain bike fenders with honking big mud flaps. I was somewhat concerned that the rear Ice Spiker would not fit and would pick away at the fenders.

However, after fighting with the Continentals that were on the bike (why are they so hard to remove?!?), cleaning up the wheels and bike and slathering the frame and all but the brakes with rust proofing solution, and putting on the Ice Spikers, and reinstalling the wheels on the bike...

... there arose an exultant sound.

They fit. With huge clearance. And no need to screw around with the fender adjustments.