Winter Biking!

snow ride! take it easy!
'bout 2-3" on the ground and still coming down. had a great commute in it. my gaiters worked perfectly.
just after the halfway point this other bike commuter dude and i played tag until i got stuck at a traffic light. he said, "it's a bit thick this morning." i agreed

Note to self, do't leave lights on the bike because cold kills the batteries.

doing early bird crits every sunday... should be cat 4 by the end of the month!

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/08/article-0-02FD4A5B000005DC-313_468x274.jpg

winter has made me a cat 3 layabout

Note to self, do't leave lights on the bike because cold kills the batteries.

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Thursday, January 7, 2010 1:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yea, why does this happen? i have always wondered about it.

that picture is great

was wow'd by how nice it is to go through an inch or two of snow that *hasn't* been packed down by car tires. this was after swerving all over on a road with tons of tire tracks.

Given that I work in a battery company I should remember this. It's a chemical thing, essentially you get a slower chemical reaction at lower temperatures and in aqueous chemistries the battery can freeze so their is no conductivity at all.

The not ploughing in pittsburgh has meant my bike has been in the office for the last few days, I can't actually get up the the hill in the brown sludge.

ALL AMERICAN WINTERTIME FUNZONE

GET INVOLVED

(RIP DDB ;_;)

o man my bike is so damn dirty, and i was so late this morning. gonna give that baby some soap and water tonite tho! and then lube! and it's fuckin snowing again in chicago! woo hoo

on another note there seems to be more of a camaraderie of the bicyclists in winter. i get waved at or whistled at by other bikers alot more over the last month or so. and in turn i am waving and whistling at other bikers more myself.

^^^ this is true

probably already mentioned on this thread (not gonna check) but i remember biking to school at 0530 in a fukkin snowstorm last winter and getting and giving the most exuberant wave ever from the only other moron dumb enough to be biking that early and in that kinda weather

So pleased work just bought a pressure washer, might come in at the weekend and degack the bike.

finest quality beater

Ed i just put some soapy water in a spray bottle and use a dirty towel; it's surprisingly effective

xpost: pfft
that bike's barely dirty, haitch!
i'll take a pic of mine before i clean it up tonight
but i don't have a photo studio and shit

haw, i'll take a pic of mine when i get home tonight, that shit is baby times

haw. tbh i was more bemused that someone would use an IF frame to such grotty work!

i await ur grime-caked commuter pix with interest, the last time i saw snow in this city was 1986.

lolstralia

actually i took a couple of pics of my 'dirty ass bike' and was like
aw it's not that dirty. i guess the camera lies abt how dirty stuff can be . . . or the wet conditions kinda cleaned it up on the way home last night.

how to enjoy winter biking from the good folks at wls channel 7 in chicago

here is (perhaps not very) dirty bike
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/bike%20stuff/DSC_0006.jpg?t=1263605014
so i cleaned it with soapy water in a spray bottle and a dirty towel

was sorta wondering why this wasn't ever done. i just assumed it was already against the rules.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-bans-studded-tires-for-cyclo-cross

yea i was riding along and i hear this whirring noise, and it's this dude cruising along on his cruiser. he passes me and i see that he has those tires with the spikes in 'em. and i thought "oh those are those tires with the spikes in 'em. i guess it makes sense that they make noise."

mine sound exactly like a studded car tire, kinda crunchy noise

another morning commute of 'whoa-dude-those*car-packed-snow-tracks*r-really-making-my-bike-swerve'
had to ditch once but didn't eat it. kinda jumped off at the last second and landed it.
neighbor newfoundland barked, dude shoveling giggled a tiny

I fitted snow tyres to my bike yesterday as I'm bore of the vagueries of city ploughing dictating whether I can ride to work or not. I also took off the eggbeaters and put on regular pedals. It's now accumulated about an inch over the course of the afternoon so I feel vindicated by this decision.

yo ed can put some pics of these tyres?

http://bicyclewarehouse.com/merchant/328/images/large/tire_scwalbe_snow_studs.gif

I'll do a WDYBLL tomorrow when its light. The studs are probably overkill but they were on sale and plain knobby schwalbes weren't.

http://static2.biketiresdirect.com/imagesProduct/scsno1-1.jpg

~swoon~

we've been getting hammered with snow, so it's sorels and the mtb lately. it's a slow pig but I am INVINCIBLE

I have only one bike, but my hall cupboard is now full of tyres for every occasion.

Horrible sleet in the air and slush on the ground. Glad I brought a change of clothes and down slipper into work.

I really need to get some waterproof trousers, the jeans and wellingtons combo only works so well.

I had the least pleasant commute of my life tonight. I'd decided that +5 degrees C this morning meant I could wear my lighter winter gloves and no buff/skullcap. I also haven't had my front guard fixed so heavy rain/standing water goes all over my shoes. It started raining on the way in, but there was a decent tailwind and it was pretty mild.

This evening, the rain had picked up, the temperature had fallen, the wind was now 10mph in my face, and traffic was appalling. I had to keep slowing down because wet freezing bald head was giving me one hell of an ice cream-style headache, but I couldn't slow too much otherwise the rest of me would freeze. Not that I had much option, with filthy traffic - I saw a car hit a van and a bus hit another bus (they make a hell of a noise when they scrape up each other's side), and for some reason tonight was the night the usually considerate motorcycling community went mental. Other cyclists were there usual idiotic selves - though peds kept out of my way for a change, apart from the woman how stuck her hand straight out into the road as I was passing by (one hundreth of a second later and she'd have punched me hard in the side of the head).

Anyway, I was so relieved to get home I didn't care that everything was saturated, that I couldn't feel my hands and feet. I wasn't riding any more.

you poor little shit, how's that for fat tuesday?

that is the worst weather imo
when it's around freezing but raining.

http://video.wttw.com/video/1414545458/

is maybe over for this year

SHUT UP

yr gonna ruin it

yea it will be *my fault*
fuckin superstitionismz

oh brother, riding last night perchance on some railroad tracks and whoopsidaisy i went over and totally fucked up my back wheel. mad frustration

Hey UK riders, bargain!

http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/ZXCLPXMERLS/planet-x-and-on-one-100-percent-merino-wool-ls-top-bundle?utm_source=Planet+X+and+On+One&utm_campaign=d79d803aea-21st_December_Block_Version12_21_2010&utm_medium=email

fugly!

zim zam

biked to work in shorts and t-shirt this morning ( via london 13 degrees) this is like summer.

it ain't pitch black at 8am in the summer iirc

-11ºF wind chill

let's do this

Bugger me, it was cold coming into work this morning.