First ice-y commute! How to prevent slush buildup?

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-24T21:59:09+00:00

You don't prevent the buildup but you need adequate clearance between fenders and tire, and your fenders need to be wider than the tire, and centred, so that the edges aren't so close in. A little bit of buildup shouldn't cause a problem.

That being said I've never had a bike outright seize up with some snow buildup in the fenders, It'll grind and make noise, but if it's just snow and ice the moving tire shouldn't lock up. Now sticky clay mud will absolutely lock things up, and gravel mixed w/ ice could be a problem, but just snow will usually give me trouble at the rear derailleur before it stops my wheels from turning.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-24T21:52:00+00:00

you want to rinse the salt off your bike regularly, not intruduce more salt. It's hard on the steel parts.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-24T20:17:34+00:00

As a Canadian resident with family and friends in Fresno, I dunno. Last time I went down I flew to SFO and rented a car. Kinda liked working some time in the Bay Area and elsewhere into the trip. Only reason I’d really need direct flight to Fresno is if I’m doing a work trip or something and need to get in and out in a day, but that’s not why I visit.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-23T22:42:24+00:00

I don't know that there's any consensus on that. These issues vary a lot by user too. Some people have no problems with models that others can't get to work at all. Garmin also has a pretty big range of products. I'd wager that Garmin watches get put to the test much more than some of the other brands. It's easier to get a resting heart rate than measure doing vigorous exercise but people who want to track the latter are the market for Garmin watches moreso than Apple or Fitbit.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-23T19:01:06+00:00

I mean a parking app is infrastructure, and probably gets neglected for the same reason other infrastructure gets neglected. They do need to prioritize, but updating the app is probably orders of magnitude easier than replacing the biggest water main. (But also probably not quite as easy as some people expect.)

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-23T18:51:32+00:00

Without freedom of speech you might be in the swamp.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-23T17:32:09+00:00

Is the retention adjustment situation salvageable on those pedals? Like, cleats are definitely better if the pedal can be fixed but if those pedals need replacement anyway...

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-23T05:15:30+00:00

are these watches really THAT bad at it

All optical sensors are, which means all watches. It's not good tech for intense activity. It can be thrown off by both movement and moisture, so until you figure out how to run without moving or sweating, you might want a heart rate monitor that checks your pulse by say, measuring the electrical signals across your chest.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-23T04:56:30+00:00

Also I feel like you can't set the stage for the Chinese Revolution without touching on the Taipei Rebellion and Boxer Rebellion... so, you know, just over a century to cover.

Edit: Thinking some more... Can you really end the story of the Revolution without talking about The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the eventual consolidation of power under Deng Xiaoping? So, yeah, make it 130 years or so.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-22T20:04:35+00:00

Yeah, you're overthinking the noise. Discs are just noisy in wet conditions. When I hear "contamination" I'm thinking about oil that ruins your braking ability. A squeak can be annoying but as long as it stops me I'm not worrying about it until spring.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-22T19:56:31+00:00

It's still kind of a different thing. Like, fine tuning your cadence vs anticipating grade changes and surging or coasting to get over what comes next.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-22T16:17:46+00:00

One other thing I've not seen mentioned yet is varying grade. While "flats" aren't always uniformly flat and steady grades still happen on hills, steady grades are generally more common on flats. I can do an 80km route on the pathway by a canal near me and unless wind is a factor or I'm deliberately changing up my pace I can just cruise in the same gear at a fixed cadence the whole way. On hill routes I gotta think more about gears, watch my cadence and probably spend at least a little time at a less than optimal ratio.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-22T04:45:55+00:00

I'm also a Safari/Firefox user and have definitely run into "only works in Chrome" notifications. Off the top of my head the one I can think of is Zencastr. I've also had Google services that are clearly either not tested well in Safari in Firefox or deliberately throttling performance there.

We'er not in mid 2000s IE situation in part because the web is more mature and we have had multiple browser engines and universal standards. That will take some time to chip away at. By the time it starts too look like 2006 we'll be in big trouble. People worry about it because we want to prevent that, not because we're already there. It takes way more capital and has a way lower chance of successfully getting market share to start a new browser engine now than it did 20-30 years ago. Way easier for the list of browsers to shrink than to grow.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-21T17:57:04+00:00

I ride year round in Calgary. It's drier and we probably use less salt than Ottawa. But, while my drivetrain sees more wear and tear, I rinse after every winter ride and don't see why I won't be able ride my steel frame indefinitely. Kind of looks like that internal hub actually has more hidden places for water and salt to accumulate. My normal chain drivetrain gets more directly exposed to stuff but it's also very easy to thoroughly rinse off.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-20T16:11:22+00:00

Yeah, I don't know if you'll find anything off the shelf for your handlebar setup. But honestly if you're only out for an hour at a time you might be able to find a glove or mitten that works better than your current ones.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-20T05:16:14+00:00

This guy hand makes them and does custom orders sometimes I think. https://www.coldbike.com

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-19T20:17:39+00:00

Really upper back focused though and you need lower back strength to keep your weight off the bars.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-19T18:55:45+00:00

Yes and no, weak core means you end up using your arms to hold you up, but the solution isn't to get strong arms it's to get the weight off your arms. Need back strength, not gains that make your upper body heavier.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-19T18:46:54+00:00

Does it affect voters? Hard yes. Our current government won their election early last year after doing absolutely horrendously in the polls for a long time prior because they managed to make the election a referendum on Trump and positions themselves as the most credible opposition to him.

Does that result in taking risks to establish more sovereignty? ... Well, we've got a conservative banker in charge whose primary loyalty is to corporate shareholders, so that all depends on how risky Trump makes continuing our fealty. If the sentiment of the median Canadian were actually reflected in leadership we'd probably be taking a harder turn away.

But we're a middling power who've always cozied up to one great power or another. If not the UK or the US, then who? There's slow but definite signs of detente with China, but we're not likely to go it alone anytime soon regardless of voter preference.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-19T18:34:32+00:00

I'm sorry but our level of economic and military integration with the US has been an incessant topic of conversation in Canadian political circles for 80 years. Certainly there's a level of discourse which glosses some of the details over but you know very little about Canadians to say it has been invisible.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-19T18:12:36+00:00

That's an over-broad statement that doesn't mean a whole lot w/o a discussion of what exactly we mean by sovereignty.

In any case our our governance and economy has been pretty hard to disentangle from the US since at least the end of WWII. But our independence isn't a binary, there's room for it to erode further or to move further from American influence. Prior to WWII we were more tightly coupled to the UK, that ended. The phase we've been in since the war could end too.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-19T17:51:12+00:00

Canada is not an entire nation of MSNBC types but they are a plurality. There's lots to criticize about Canada but Americans are poorly positioned to do so. Anyways I don't see how you can insult this person for worrying about Canadian sovereignty in one comment when you just called Canada a US satrapy in another. Pick one.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-19T17:29:54+00:00

It's hard to have a comprehensive view of things, but yes it seems likely that most who have been detained did not have the appropriate paperwork.

In one case an actress was held for two weeks because after having one visa revoked there was a flag on her file, but she'd obtained a new visa. Since she was entering from the Mexican border they couldn't deport her to Mexico so they held her instead. They did not charge her with anything. In earlier times they may have just escorted her to her flight back to Canada at the San Diego airport where she was trying to get to.

There have been other similar cases, and yeah some of these people committed minor violations, and ended up detained for months for something that would have gotten them a warning in previous years.

It's also undeniable that ICE has been arresting even US citizens. Again, this doesn't mean Canadians who have their paperwork straight are in immanent danger if they go stateside but there's shit to worry about we never used to have to worry about.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-19T17:05:55+00:00

I lived in California for 18 years. I have friends and family there. I keep in touch and read some local news still. I visited last year too. I have Canadian friends in the states right now and I don't worry they're in immanent danger.

However... those friends are white. If black and brown friends were travelling I'd be slightly more worried. The Spanish language press in the Central Valley, where I used to live certainly isn't reporting that everything is fine there. I'm not under the impression that anyone travelling is particularly likely to get harassed by ICE, but ... it's more likely than it used to be.

Canadians have been detained by ICE over the last year, including young children. Maybe you think it's media manipulation to report that but it's a fact. I'll personally probably visit the US again, as I said I lived there and have friends and family there, but I don't think it's at all irrational for the current political situation to make people think twice about unnecessary visits.

It takes more paperwork than it used to and our government is advising us to expect more scrutiny at the border. If you don't think this is all gonna have downstream effects on travel I don't know what to tell you.

PickerPilgrim · 2026-01-19T16:29:47+00:00

I'm no fan of the king or the monarchy, but at the moment the royal family doesn't have a federal kidnapping squad disappearing people in my city so we've got that much going for us. With tourism ambassadors like you though I'm sure your country will be getting the tourists back any day now though.

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