The other day I was at the bike parking lot at the university, and heard a ding in my head. I decided to see how many people had studded tires in their bikes. So I dug out a pen and piece of paper from my pocket and started to count.
The problem was, it was not as easy as it sounds. On smooth tires there was no problem. It had snowed recently, so the grooves and knobs on the knobby tires were full of snow. It was impossible to see at a glance if the tire was studded or not. I had to clean them first. So I checked about 50 bikes.
There was about one in five of bikes which had at least one studded tire. And about the same number of pure grandma bikes- that is bikes which are not mtb, hybrid, touring etc. I think I should've also counted how many bikes had racks and/or baskets. Maybe next time, when the tires are cleaner, I'll do a recount. Or I'll take a brush with me.
I'll have to think if I can figure out where I could get a comparison group that is not almost 100% students. Do students have more studded tires than 'average' cyclist, because they have to cycle no matter what the weather is? Or less, because they have no money? Hmm...
Edit:
Today (8.12.2010) I took a brush with me and did a recount of about 120 bikes. The numbers are not exact because a few people took their bikes off the racks and rode off and others arrived. Also it was not the same day of the week and it was a warm day (-3C) today, so the results are a bit different.
This time there were less studded tires, about 15%. About 75% of the bikes had racks on them and about 10% had baskets. I just love useless statistics!
Awesome survey! That's a lot of studded tires! Next time, if it's no too cold, we need some pictures too!
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of bike do you ride?
At the moment I've got an old MTB, early 90's model I think. I got it second hand, very cheap because it needed repairs :)
ReplyDelete