Tire-change!

Tonight, there is SNOW!!! What that means is that I had to work on changing out my road-type tires for studded tires. The work took about an hour, because I couldn't figure out how to remove the back tire because the Alfine's internal gearshifting cable assembly thingy was not as easy to remove as I was shown at the bike store. (Not that they didn't show me how to do it -- they did -- but I was just too silly to realize that I wasn't paying enough attention to what was going on.)

Anyway, after the removal of the wheels, putting the tires on was not too difficult. I say not too difficult, because the tires -- being well oversized -- were a little difficult to actually fit over each wheel. It wasn't because it was too tight, but it was actually awkward to fit the really large tires over wheels that were on the small end of what they were meant to fit. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that I got it done without too much difficulty, but I wasn't expecting it to be so difficult to do. However, I'm not an expert bike mechanic (not even an amateur one), so it's a good thing that I did this tonight, instead of tomorrow morning before I had to leave for work. (I can only imagine how much stress I would have trying to get this done in the one hour that I normally allow myself between waking up and leaving for work in the morning.)

The end result is quite nice. Of course, with much thicker tires, I'm sitting about an inch-and-one-half higher than I was with the road tires. I'll have to stop in at the bike shop to lower that seat just a tad so that I can ride with a little more peace-of-mind than riding so high on icy roads. (Of course, it will mean that I will likely be riding with a less-efficient ergonomic layup, but I wonder how bad that would be.)

If the traction of these tires are as good as the ones I had for my last bike, then this will make my travel to and from campus more secure. However, I will also have to be aware of drivers who don't have such traction on their cars; just because I can stop on a dime on ice doesn't mean that I am necessarily safe, especially if people might still be driving around on summer tires or (even if they are on winter or all-weather tires) don't recognize that they are driving on ice.