who does winter cycling here?
 

post #4

Find it weird you need 10 post before you are allowed to upload pictures. Must be to motivate traffic in the channel?

So who does winter cycling?

Probably everyone in this subforum.

I don’t do ”winter cycling”.
I merely commute year round where winter is a season to be noticed.

Does this mean you ride on ice?

When I lived in LA, whenever it was going to hit 50 degrees the news channels would go beezerk with ads calling it a 'blast of winter'. And everyone would be walking around in their fur lined parka ski outfits.
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Depends on what the season brings.
I don’t intentionally seek out ice to ride on, as the guys who hit the frozen lakes do.
But ice, hardpack, whatever the roads along my commute offers - sure.

Before the 10-post rule was instituted, legitimate posts were often crammed out by dozens of spam posts, which made the forum all but unreadable.

I love my Fat bike. There's some incredible trails around and my favorite is about 15 miles of trails around a pond and 2 bogs that have lots of bobcats and otters, etc. There's a place just up the road from me that has great views of the White Mts in NH. It also has a civil war peace monument. So I try to maintain the trails in the winter. It's not a long climb, but there are some steep sections.

I did winter commuting thing in Indiana with the snow and ice and refrozen slush, then in west Texas where it might be 20F in the morning and 90F on the way home, and the PNW where rain comes in 642 types. Now I walk down the hall for my commute, and my commuter bike gets the occasional beer run. If my employer realizes software guys don't actually need office square footage, no I might not actually commute anymore. If my employer doesn't realize that, I may have to find a smarter employer, in which case I still won't commute by bike any more.

Since you asked.

Is that actually common?

Big weather swings in the desert are indeed common. Even in the summer, the temperature often drops markedly just before sunrise. In the winter, it gets quite cold.

I recall a fall day when I finished a ride with a huge southern tailwind, went in the convenience store to grab a snack, came back outside, and found a huge cold north wind. The temp had dropped 50 degrees in 5 minutes.

Southern weather is strange.

I live in New Orleans for a few years. Once, riding home from work it was 90ish and not a cloud in the sky. Suddenly I was being drenched in a rainstorm.

or 10 miles out along the lake, same conditions, a black cloud appeared. Small, and very black, dark dark black. Spitting out like 3 lightning bolts a second. I turned around and it chased me all the way home. Like a bugs bunny cartoon. Never seen anything like that before or dince.

With the summer heat still going strong in August, I think there is a high chance we can ride all the way til Christmas. Global warming is pretty sweet.

I did, and quit for a couple of years. It was a lot of work and preparation for each trip to work or each trip to the mountain bike trails. Plus all of the extra maintenance since salt and sand is not very friendly to chains and other moving metallic parts. But it was fun. I had an older (2006) Rockhopper with 26” Nokian studded tires. It could go just about anywhere. I stopped for a couple of years because I was traveling a lot for work and just didn’t have time for all of prep work and maintenance and extra layers to wash and dry.

My travel demands have greatly diminished thanks to Covid and I now rent an office about 4 miles from home and am thinking about winter riding again.

Last time I winter rode I just didn't ride in slush. I live next to a path so often that would be fine when the roads were slushy.

If I had a garage and a bike stand instead of an apartment cleaning up the bike wouldn't be such a pain.
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I hope not, I just spent $350 on new studded tires.

I'm backing off my hardcore winter riding. At a late sixties age, those crashes take too much of a toll. But I commuted year 'round 3 days a week up until 8 years ago. Portland, OR - mostly just wet, sometimes fallen branches. But when it dropped below freezing, drivers without a clue (and sometimes road crews - not sanding a key corner on the approach to Oregon's most important hospital, a corner that is always wet! I went down at 5:30 am on my way to work. The sign on the island was trashed when I went home.)

I've done my share of winter riding. No car 'till I was in my 30s. Lived in Massachusetts and Michigan until I was 26 and didn't use public transportation much..

Now a good fresh snow Sunday? I'll go out on my ice tires and have some fun!

Ben

Many of my NE and midwest winters I lived in apartments and didn't own a car. Solution? A second bike. Old steel fix gear beater. It lived in a hall on a 6' plastic carpet runner. I"d carry it in. set it on the runner leaning against the wall. Simply let it drip its ooze onto the runner.

Yes, this bike flunked all BF clean bike protocol. By March it was a true mess. But fix gears work with almost no attention through anything. (Fix gear, Mafac brakes, cyclocross tires.) In March, new chain and needed sprockets, rebuild the wheels with new spokes, rims and summer tires tires. December - change tires and repeat.

Ben

Another year round cyclist... Hasn't snowed here in several years , mostly rains a lot...

last few years 27f was an overnight heat loss with cloudless skies,, lasts only a few days ..

I have an old MTB wearing Suomi-Nokian studded tires, I pull out & pump up the tires , when there was ice & snow ..
The tires, 30 years old, are still fine..

Yes, I often ride in the winter. Though, I tend to only do so when it's 45ºF and above, and not when there's ice or snow on the ground. (Getting "softer" as the years go on.)

I've done winter cycling in Michigan, Colorado, and Wisconsin, and 'winter' cycling in California, Alabama, and North Carolina. I had no car during portions of my time in Michigan and Colorado, and for five years of my time in Wisconsin.

I never caught the fat bike bug and am still freaked out by frozen bodies of water after watching my dad crash in as a kid. Instead, I seek out low-traffic residential roads and go bang around on the ice with studded tires.

At 59 I’m still doing winter road riding when the roads aren’t sloppy. I live in southern New England and occasionally ride when temps are in the teens (F).

Dan

I ride year round. Not as many miles in the winter. But I still get out on weekends. I'm from the New Bedford Ma. area

My normal commuter is a recumbent.

When the temps dip into the 50s, I'll ride the velomobile. It's got three wheels, and is almost fully enclosed, so I can ride it in snow/icy conditions. I also use the velo pretty regularly because it's got more cargo space and is much easier to carry my work laptop.

I don't ride outdoors in winter. We get down to only about 3 hours of daylight and can have stretches of more than a month when the daily high temperatures don't get above -30 degrees. I've seen the fatbikers out there in the worst of it but it doesn't look fun. I've got studded tires for my mountain bike to ride in the shoulder seasons when temps might be in the positive teens or single digits but once the thermometer goes negative so does my attitude about zooming around on a bike.

If you live in a place where snow can accumulate on the roads, then you have to assume that at some point you will encounter ice.
Here in Chicago, we get lots of snow and ice, and it's not always possible to predict the weather with certainty.
The secret to safe riding on ice is to have studded tires. They're somewhat expensive, and they make noise (like frying bacon) on dry pavement, and they do add some rolling resistance... but "black ice" and ice under snow do not pose serious threats to control of the bike. I have a separate dedicated "winter" bike with Schwalbe Marathon Winter tires. When the weather prediction has minimal risk of freezing precipitation, I'll ride my "regular" bike, but when there's a significant possibility of ice on the road, I can switch to the winter bike easily.
My answer to those who complain about the cost of the tires is: "Yes, but what's the co-pay on a broken hip?"
(I'm 70, and have been commuting year-'round for over 18 years.)
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1cacfb198f.jpg
My "winter" bike. Studded tires, rear roller brake, fenders & mud flaps.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...7e043e2e0.jpeg
Arriving at work in the winter in Chicago. There's ice under those "mashed potatoes", but the studs make the difference.