[SGVLUG] OT: Snow

[Chris Smith]

On 11/16/05, Dustin <laurence at alice.caltech.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Nov 2005, Chris Smith wrote:
> > ...Not that they are a bad
> > idea, but they seem to be used a lot more down here than they are up
> > in Canada, and I don't understand why, as they are really harsh on the
> > road when used at innapporpriate times.
>
> They are, but salt is bad stuff too and yet people some places (in Montana
> they don't salt the roads because it's typically below the freezing
> temparature of brine anyway) consider safety more important. :-)

Well, there are tricks for dealing with lower temperatures too.
Calcium based salts will get you a bit rather (and do a bit more road
damage), and then there is sand or the newer stuff based on polished
glass/silicon balls. Still, even without all that cool stuff you can
do remarkably well on snow with a proper set of tires.

> But if you like to go skiing or something, the
> actual chain types are by far the best, and the diamond pattern variety is
> a lot more expensive than the ladder variety but much better for the
> steering wheels on snow because they offer decent lateral resistance.

So, I think this is where we might be seeing things differently.
Certainly, out here along the rockies, you can easily run in to
situations where chains are an absolute requirements, but along the
Canadian shield and Appalachian chains, it tends to be necessary far
less often if you have snow tires and clue one about driving in snow.
In the flat areas they are even less necessary. In Ontario you need to
go at least as far north as Ottawa (the snowiest and second coldest
capital in the world until the Cold War ended and created a bunch of
frozen fiefdoms) to hear people talking about chains with any kind of
frequency.

--
Chris