cold weather riding

[LBTC]

hey, folks! I can barely keep up - our temps are all in celcius, so the conversions make it nearly impossible to follow this thread! hahahaha I pretty much don't ride in the winter. Our roads are narrow, rough and horrible at the best of times, and in the winter have either lots of snow on the shoulders of lots of residue from the sanding, gravelling, salting and plowing. This particular year we had more snow than usual in December and -20 ish temps, two weeks ago we dropped to the mid -30's, then we hit +12 on Sunday with rain. We were vacuuming up the runoff out of our basement suite all weekend!! This week we've been very close to zero, give or take, with only gentle thawing of what little is left of the snow. For once in a long time, it looks like we'll ride our mountain bikes in January!!! The plan is, as long as it's 3 or more, and not raining, to do a road loop on Sunday. And I'm really looking forward to it!!

I"m seriously impressed with anybody who rides in subzero temperatures! You girls rock!! Generally, I just do the walk to work thing. Since my commute by bike is around 7 minutes to work and 15 minutes to get home, but my walk is about a half hour each way, I use the theory that I'm burning more calories and helping my fitness more by walking than by riding!! And, yes, if I'm not recovering from a stomach flu, I'll still walk in -30 and colder!

Here's to all you healthy, fit women!!

namaste,
~T~

[CorsairMac]

Actually I was Just thinking about this thread the past few days while commuting! (since the site was down and I couldn't chat with ya'll). I've started standing on the pedals for every steep hill I climb and am learning - you can't ride any faster than you can suck air into your lungs! As an asthmatic, if I can't get enough air into my lungs I'll start coughing and hacking! (quite pretty to listen to I'm sure) and when I have my mouth covered it helps with the asthma but it makes it even harder to suck air in. So I tailor my rides to keep those old lungs inflated and working! Just a thought!

[caligurl]

i had to laugh the other day... i'm a couple months behind on bicycling magazine (hubby hordes that one the way i horde maximum PX).. anyways.. there was an article on cold weather riding.. and comments from different people from different parts of the country.. and the califoria quote sounded like it coulda come from me! i think 50 degrees is too cold to ride!!!!!!!!!

[MomOnBike]

50 deg as too cold to ride!

That reminds me of a ride a friend & I took this fall. Probably in the high 40's, wind, no sun. We agreed that come spring, that day would be considered to hot to ride.

OK, we were exagerating, but not by much.

Me, I wilt above about 70.

Going out for lunch (on bikes) today with DH. Snow on the ground, (I hope it's off the streets), wind, low 40's - yeah, I'm good.

[caligurl]

Me, I wilt above about 70.

lol! well.. i started riding in the middle of the summer in the desert.. so i got very used to riding in 100+ degrees! granted i go very early on weekends and wait til about 7 on work nights (but it's still over 100 a lot of those evenings!)

to me the perfect ride is the mid 80's... i wear a jacket in the 70's (never took off my undershirt OR my jacket last weekend at the tour de palm springs.. also had on tights, toe warmers and full finger polypro gloves and ear warmer head band! i'm a W-I-M-P! it got into the low 70's but no sun all day! actually perfect wearther (IMHO) for a 1st century!

[cyclingnewbie]

I'm with MomOnBike; anything over 70 degrees is too hot! The only thing I hate worse than the heat is wind. I base my choice of bike path on which way the wind is coming from. But, back to temperature. I had some problems riding in the 50 degree range until I got better clothing. But appropriate clothing didn't help me much with the heat. In Ohio it is so humid in the summer, that 85 degrees with 80% humidity just kills me. I haven't found much of a solution for that problem. I'd much rather ride when it's cool.

[caligurl]

i can put on a gizzilion clothes and i'm STILL miserable in my perception of cold! heck.. i have PI amfib claw gloves for my "cold" days!

i truly feels it's where we live and what we are used to on a daily basis! i actually never thought i'd ride in the summer.. but i love it.. my mother is shocked that i will get out and ride in the cold! (she knows how i am!)