I was caught by surprise last week when winter gave us a preview of what's to come, my winter bike wasn't ready! I didn't have my studded tires install yet and had to commute that day and I had some sections where I can feel the tires losing traction, that didn't feel good. That tends to happen on areas where the bus have compacted that snow into ice almost.
Over the weekend I got my Schwalbe Marathon Winters installed, I'm really amazed at how well the tires were made, after several seasons they show little to no signs of wear. The studs looked rusty due to me storing them without drying them first. Also replaced the metal fenders and the 700c fenders that was on the rear. Someone on reddit suggest adding mud flaps to protect my chainrings and bb, I should have thought of that before, I had fenders on my main commuter before and always get mucky chainrings. I thought the fenders would be enough I never thought to add mud flaps.
Really looking forward to a safe and pleasant commute this winter ❄️⛄️
Update Nov 16: got the mud flaps on, made it from neoprene cabinet liners and duct tape... and it does work! Was raining a bit last night and there were puddles everywhere, so I made sure to ride over those puddles and my shoes remained dry! Well there were a bit of water on the side but I figure I have to make the bottom part of the flap a little bit wider, I'll make sure to do that for version 2.0
