Does anyone have experience with going over Mt Washington in winter. I generally take the Southern/Sycamore route but watching the water come down today I can see a thin sheet of ice forming over the entire width of Sycamore in some spots.
Does anyone have any experience commuting in this neck of the woods to know if Sycamore or McArdle gets hyper-salted or hit early on the plow routes? Does the McArdle sidewalk ever get cleared? I need to hit Smithfield St. and West Liberty Ave so I'd like to stick fairly close to my current route rather than going all the way down to 18th for instance unless there is a really good reason to do so.
Along the same lines, I've seen lots of folks sing the praises of studded tires. Are they just good for helping you go or also with stopping, which is my bigger concern on the hill.
I go down Williams St. It’s not as steep as Sycamore and it comes out on Arlington Av just above the Liberty Bridge. The city clears and salts this part of Arlington fairly well because the T runs up this part of it.
The City does not do much in the way of clearing the sidewalk on McArdle…maybe once or twice a year they clear off all the leaves and trash.
That's bad news about Sycamore icing. I commuted from Mt. W to downtown through the winter and I always took Sycamore up and down. I found that it was reliably plowed and salted whenever there was snow or ice. Maybe today took the city's crews by surprise? (Always a possibility.) I never used studded tires - I had fat slicks on a mountain bike.
When I used to commute up and over, I also used Sycamore most of the time, but found 18th to be the only road that was always clear enough to ride.
