7 ms·
The conditions you describe are tough. Going off the road in an ice storm sucks. Love your CB and snow suit suggestions. The following is not commentary on you
by astral303 14y ago
The conditions you describe are tough. Going off the road in an ice storm sucks. Love your CB and snow suit suggestions.
The following is not commentary on your situation, but tips to reduce chance of getting stuck:
1. I strongly recommend running a set of good snow tires, no matter whether you have an AWD Subaru or a 4x4 truck or a FWD Corolla. Yes, truck snow tires exist.
The reason is that the rubber compound is much much softer on these tires, and it stays soft when the temperatures drop. All-season tires are much harder in cold temperatures. The tread is also cut into much smaller blocks (known as siping), the edges of which help bite into the ice.
While ice is slippery no matter what, the difference in the grip level between a typical all season tire and a good snow tire is very significant. We are talking 3x the stopping distance. I've seen it on glare ice.
Now, if you really want to be protected, you must buy good studded snow tires. A set of Nokian Hakkapeliitta 7's will make ice seem almost like wet pavement. The amount of ice grip you have with those is unbelievable. The downside is the increased tire noise.
2. Practice controlling skids on ice or snow: practice countersteer, practice NOT hitting the brakes, practice using throttle.
If you can practice this to make it second nature, or at least not foreign, this can make the difference between you spinning and not.
Get out to a snowy parking lot, start turning, let off throttle, then yank the e-brake (and put it down right away). You should start experiencing a spin at this point. No matter what, train yourself to immediately countersteer, such that your front wheels are pointed to where you want the car to go and not where the car is facing.
Now, while countersteering every time, compare the following 3 situations after starting the spin:
A. Counterseteer & do nothing with brake or gas. Simply get your feet off the pedals.
B. Countersteer & hit the brakes.
C. Countersteer & apply gas.
You must actually experience each of these to believe it, but you will learn that it is "C", applying gas, which will get you back in line the soonest. You will notice that as soon as you give it gas, the spin will stop or slow down significantly. You will notice that if you hit the brakes, you spin much further than if you were to simply let go off all the controls.
This is counter-intuitive, but basically if you start spinning on ice on a straight road and you have a FWD/AWD car, applying some throttle will often stop your spin, whereas hitting the brakes almost guarantees a spin. It's worth practicing, if you can.
The reason has to do with weight transfer. Your car's traction at each end is determined by the amount of weight. When you accelerate, you decrease traction up front and you increase traction in the rear. Lifting off throttle increases front end traction and decreases rear end traction, a little. Hitting the brakes massively decreases rear end traction and massively increases front end bite.
- freehunter 14y agoFor truck snow tires, many times "reasonable" MT (mud terrain) or AT (all terrain) tires are also rated for snow. I say reasonable because MTs can get pretty extreme in their tread pattern, which will really hurt your stopping distance on ice. Extreme MTs have very little rubber touching the road. On my truck I have Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmor tires, which are rated for on/off-road and extreme snow. I wouldn't recommend them as street tires, as they are loud and wear very quickly on pavement, but just as an example of truck "snow" tires, ATs and MTs often serve the same purpose as snow tires, as well as giving you a better ability to get back on the road if you've gone off in a muddy or rough area. ATs wear quicker than all-seasons (~50,000 miles). MTs wear extremely quickly (~30,000 miles). Normal all-season tires generally wear at ~60,000 miles. -edit- also, before buying studded tires, check to see if they're legal in your state/country, and make a note of the legality dates. Many times they're only legal from November through March (studded tires damage the road when the road is dry). Tire chains are temporary solutions, but are practically illegal in many states (can only be used if the chain never touches the road surface).
- barrkel 14y agoI had a spit-take when you suggested 30k was extremely quick wear, as I'm used to motorcycle tyres, where 5k is a fairly long life!
- fest 14y ago> you will learn that it is "C", applying gas, which will get > you back in line the soonest. You will notice that as soon > as you give it gas, the spin will stop or slow down > significantly. That only helps with more common, oversteer situations (when the rear wheels are skidding). On the contrary, if you're experiencing an understeer (front wheels are skidding) applying more gas will only make matters worse. You want the front wheels to regain traction, and there are two ways to do so- countersteering and do nothing with accelerator. A tiny little bit of braking may be neccessary. All this advice is rarely useful when driving a car (except in places where temperature is below freezing point) but it's extremely important when riding a motorcycle on every kind of terrain.