Spike to School Day

We live in an urban country park in Newcastle upon Tyne. Jesmond Dene is beautiful year round (if you can block out the white noise from the Cradlewell bypass bridge) but it’s a steep valley and a bugger to get out of when it’s icy.

This morning’s snow flummoxed a few rat-runners in their 4×4s but the bicycle version of this all-wheel traction saw us safely to school. My 13-year old lad went one way to his secondary school (past the ‘road closed’ sign above) and I accompanied my 11-year old daughters on the tough ride up Benton Bank to their primary school.

We got up no problems. All our bikes are now fitted with studded tyres. I have Nokian spike tyres, my kids have 24-inch spike tyres from Schwalbe. Lower the pressure and you can climb up sheet ice (which is what we’ll be doing tomorrow when the snow and slush freezes).



We left for school early to get to badminton club at 8am. It was cancelled: the teacher was snowbound and stuck in traffic. Maybe she could get herself a more reliable form of winter transport?