Latest on anti-slip tyres

When I tried to start riding today my bike started to make horrible grinding sounds (in addition to the normal sounds :-) and I had to stop and see what was going on. The bike seemed fine, but every time I pushed the bike forward the noise was there. It didn't take me long to figure out where the sound came from: the rear tyre.

Take a bike from a warm bike garage and ride on some snow and gritting sand. The warm tyre melts some of the snow, and the cold gritting sand re-freezes it, in effect glueing the sand to the tyre. Now I got gritted rear tyre for free! :-) The only problem is that the fender is so close fit that the gritting sand granules are grinding it to pieces. I'll have to unscrew the fender and do some "precision mechanics" with a hammer to make the gap a bit bigger.

And there is something wrong with the chain/rear sprocket, too. I changed a new chain last week and now it makes a sound. I guess the rear sprocket is too worn and the new chain is not properly seated in the teeth. But I can't ride to the bike shop to buy a new one if I take the old out...

Yesterday the snow storm hit southern Finland. According to the meteorological institute, the spot with most deep layer of snow (47cm) is now in Hanko, as far south as you can get in Finland. Helsinki has 37 cm is fourth on the list. But due to the storm the results are not reliable, as the wind makes "dunes" which are much higher than the average. I'm guessing 20 cm from the pictures.

But still, there were problems. The hard wind fell some trees on power lines, trams were derailed when the tracks (or rather the grooves in the tracks?) were filled with snow. The ferries (to/from Estonia and Sweden) and trains were running late and car traffic was chaotic. To top of that, the (over/underground train) Metro was installing new control systems as scheduled this weekend and some trains were replaced with buses. But today everything should be back to normal.