Winter Cycling - Northern Winter Riders ?

I have been reading a lot of posts here and always find that when those southerners talk about winter riding they are often talking about something completely different... temperatures that hover just above freezing are still considered short weather here.

:D

So who else will be riding where it gets REALLY cold ?

I'm in Edmonton, Alberta where winters are usually pretty dry but can also be freaking cold... I set up my winter gear to handle temperatures as low as -40 C which is the same as -40 F.

I'm in Anchorage AK. This is the sunny part of Alaska, so temps range from the 30's above to about -20f below. We're too close to the gulf to get much colder. Last year at it was 6 above, but we've got chinooks right now and it's in the high 30's which SUCKS because I've got my ice bike all ready to beta test but nothing to ride on but cold dry ground. The combination of high snowfall with periodic chinooks means we get amazing amounts of ice in an average winter. Inches thick on the sideroads sometimes.

I spent many years riding in Winnipeg, MB and am now doing my winter cycling in central Alberta (where it is a bit warmer than Winnipeg).

I've done commutes at -40 ... and this was my coldest "long" ride: http://www.machka.net/brevet/Coldest_Century.htm

Machka - Mebbe we'll see each other one of these days... I'll be the guy dressed as a ninja and will probably be riding this.

http://members.shaw.ca/feynn/biking/kuwiefixsnow1.jpg

I ride in Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska. Temps get down to 60 below (or lower) in North Pole just south of town where I ride sometimes. I dress in layers, wear Lake boots w/ Sidi toasters and go slow (you don't have to adjust to go slow, you just do) ;)

The North Pole is just south of where you ride? That's wild.

Riding for fun and commuting the same way all winter in Minnesota but..it just doesn't seem fun below 0 F. Especially with winds!! But then, I moved here from SW Arizona and am a cold weather wimp....

The North Pole is just south of where you ride? That's wild.

North Pole is a town below Fairbanks Alaska

I'm in Palmer Alaska, Matuanuska Valley. It is a drier than Anchorage as it's more inland and a little colder. We get to about 30 below sometimes. What makes it worse in my area is the winds off the Matanuska glacier. Windchill REALLY drops the temps.

Duluth, MN here.

Love riding in blizzards and in the extreme cold. Also, a good freezing rain makes me grin from ear to ear.

North Pole is a town below Fairbanks Alaska

I'm in Palmer Alaska, Matuanuska Valley. It is a drier than Anchorage as it's more inland and a little colder. We get to about 30 below sometimes. What makes it worse in my area is the winds off the Matanuska glacier. Windchill REALLY drops the temps.

"Winds" doesn't really capture it for an outsider, I suspect. For those who haven't had the pleasure, imagine standing in a NASA windtunnel with ambient air temp in the teens and then getting hit with 90 mph winds filled with razor sharp glacial sand. Back when I was doing a driving commute from Willow to Anchorage I remember one sideswipe gust out on the hay fields that picked up a fully loaded tote from the back of my pickup and tossed it far out into the frozen swamp. I can't imagine actually riding in that stuff. That was an interesting commute even by car. I'd start the morning at thirty below zero in the supercooled air around Willow, go through the brutal winds of Palmer and end up in the icy blizzards of Anchorage. Then back again at night! One of the few commutes around where one can drive through multiple red alert weather zones, each with a different terror in store. It was all fun till I flipped my truck at 45.

Cosmoline, that icy story made me put on a fleece jacket just reading it in the comfort of my home! That is absolutely wild and should give anyone a bit more respect for Mother Nature and her actions! :D

Spenard? Palmer? Fairbanks!! Holy clap!! :eek:

I Google Map'd your locations and my screen froze. :lol:
I only need to think of you guys to motivate myself when I find it difficult to pull on the winter gear before riding into the office.

Stay warm.
Cheers!:beer:

T.J.

Man, I thought Rochester was northern compared to some of the people who post for advice. But clearly I am one of the southerners as compared to you guys, if I had to guess I'd think the winter average around me is right around 20F.

I set up my winter gear to handle temperatures as low as -40 C which is the same as -40 F.

Okay, you got me! I ride all year, but the best I've done thus far is -7F at night. I wasn't cold at all, and could have certainly gone colder. It's all about the dress, and the machine.

If it ever gets to -40F, I'll probably just stay home. :o

... Brad

The Matanuska Winds are GREAT when they are at your back, no need to pedal. Into the wind is an excercise in pain and insanity.

-20 f. is about as cold as I care to ride in. Last winter my left eye froze shut during a downhill stretch in subzero temps. I made the mistake of prying it open, tore the skin and got a nasty infection. If both eyes had frozen shut I would have been really hosed.

did you have goggles on?? Don't go out without them. That sounds awful!! I had my contact freeze in my eyes this fall. I didn't really feel anything until I got into work, I took them out and had bloodshot eyes all day. That was my wakeup call that sunglasses weather was over.

I really need to get some nice skiing goggles. My current set are cruddy ones and just fog up.

I'll pack it in around -20*f. I'll stop riding for my own amusement (but continue commuting) somewhere in the single digits above.

In my experience the universe colder than -20 f. starts to shift. Physics change. And they change again below -40f. and get even more surreal. I draw then line where body parts can start to fall off.

In Northern New York the cycling season is 10 months long, July and August is too damn hot to ride

In my experience the universe colder than -20 f. starts to shift. Physics change. And they change again below -40f. and get even more surreal. I draw then line where body parts can start to fall off.

Yeah, things don't work right in those temps, a geared bike becomes a single speed. People become Abominable Snowmen

I have some may layers on in this picture, I could hardly pedal. Also, the slipper boots weren't good traction...they don't call them slippers for nothing! I don't recommend them for winter riding.

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd74/jovian7/croppedcrosswindbike.jpg

In Northern New York the cycling season is 10 months long, July and August is too damn hot to ride

I like cold better than hot. It's much easier to get/stay warm than it is to cool off.

But when it comes to tubing, warmer is better


http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd74/jovian7/winterrafting022.jpg

There's a good reason my winter bike (the Kuwahara) is a rigid fixed gear and has been lubed with synthetic grease...

If the weather is above freezing I'll ride almost any one of my bikes.

In Northern New York the cycling season is 10 months long, July and August is too damn hot to ride

Too hot in July and August? Dude, I grew up in Ballston Lake and I don't ever remember it being too hot in the summer. In fact, I don't remember it ever going above 80. Now, the black flies, that's a different story. We pretty much rode all year long, except when the snow got really deep. Really deep there is above six feet.

I live in Milwaukee now, which is gets dammed cold in the winter. In fact, sometimes in January we are colder than Alaska. Windchills can go to 60 below farenheit here. To be fair, normal winters the temp ranges from about 10 below to the high 20s. The problem here is the wind. We had gusts of 55 mph today with a falling temp.

What do you people do in high winds? they are a pain to ride in.

"What do you people do in high winds? they are a pain to ride in."

Suffer.

Too hot in July and August? Dude, I grew up in Ballston Lake and I don't ever remember it being too hot in the summer. In fact, I don't remember it ever going above 80. Now, the black flies, that's a different story. We pretty much rode all year long, except when the snow got really deep. Really deep there is above six feet.

I live in Milwaukee now, which is gets dammed cold in the winter. In fact, sometimes in January we are colder than Alaska. Windchills can go to 60 below farenheit here. To be fair, normal winters the temp ranges from about 10 below to the high 20s. The problem here is the wind. We had gusts of 55 mph today with a falling temp.

What do you people do in high winds? they are a pain to ride in.

Wind makes all the difference. -15 or even lower is no problem if it's calm. Part of the reason I'm considering more of a road bike/hybrid as opposed to the mountain bike I have been using is that I remember too many days where it felt I could hardly make any forward progress due to high winds.
At least riding in the drops on a road bike I wouldn't be as much of a nylon/lycra parachute.

Oh, definitely. A few days ago I was thinking the same thing. Mash down on the pedal in lowest gear to try to make headway going downhill late two-thirds of the 7 miles to a training seminar gritting my teeth and thinking 'Need to get a bent.. a low bent.. and like, a small windshell..'

What do you people do in high winds? they are a pain to ride in.

Sometimes you just have to get off and push. I encounted a northern wind last season coming through a gap between two buildings. It was so powerful and sustained I wasn't moving forward in spite of great effort. I had to laugh and just walk through it.

Getting off and man hauling is always an option in the icy season.

I commuted 12 winters in Ottawa(40km round trip).+40 to -40 I'd ride it all.At least you can dress for -40:).I would ride in snow storms,freezing rain.I enjoy how it challenges your riding ability.Really helps work on balance riding in icey conditions.The last winter I rode,I never went down once.Quite an accomplishment since it usually happens a couple of times.
I now live outside the city,way outside.So my commuting has changed quite a bit.Rural cycling is interesting but I'll leave that for another thread.44 days til the shortest day then it's bring on Spring.Ride on.TBG

My solution to high winds and my other winter commuter... it's a 1999 Trek 7500 Multitrack hybrid that I converted into what I would describe as a monster cross bike.

It now has a stiffer and stronger mtb drivetrain and runs a 2 by 8 drive that has a gear range from 29 to 109 gear inches...shifting duties are being handled marvelously by some vintage Suntour Barcon bar end shifters

The V brakes were replaced with Shimano cantis and Kool Stop salmon pads to give me the best stopping power possible in any conditions... the change to the Ritchey ergo bars required the change in brakes

The tyres are 700:35 Schwalbe CX Comp cross tyres and the bike hauls some serious ass on the road and is also able to handle light single track riding and has an astoundingly nice ride.

http://members.shaw.ca/feynn/biking/7500mxb.jpg

The salmon coloured cork is now covered with blue grey cloth tape... I loved the colour but that cork would end up looking like crap on no time and the cork was bought more for function than fashion.

My cloth tape is Renfrew hockey tape... it's as good a quality as Cat Eye cloth and you get 3 times as much for the same price and it is designed to be used in cold weather.

Nice winter biike!No fenders?My winter bike is a generic mtn bike I pulled out of the garbage and threw on a set of fenders,and changed the handlebars.Nothing fancy but it runs ok.I build a bike for the winter because by spring it's usually trashed.Why wreck the good stuff,eh?
As for riding into the wind,that's when(and I'm not ashamed to admit it:))I use the granny gear.
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s148/thebikeguyCCM/winterbeater003.jpg

My riding gear protects me from most of the slush and road cocktails but I am looking for the right fenders for this bike...I'll probably opt for some quick release models as the bike does see some off road use.

So who else will be riding where it gets REALLY cold ?

I do. Upper Peninsula of Michigan, just a few blocks from Lake Superior. I can't match your -40, but we do get plenty of snow, and it does get cold here. I clearly remember riding in below zero weather a few days last year, but it was probably only in the -5 to -15 neighborhood. I've seen -20ish once or twice in years past. I don't recall ever seeing -40 in my life.

I actually don't pay much attention to the numeric temperature. I just step outside to get a feel for how cold and windy it is on any given day. Then I go from there. My guess is that the teens and the low 20s are the more common temps that I ride in. I do think of where I live as a place that gets "serious" winter.

I feel like I've never known cold reading these stories. The coldest I've experienced in UK is -8C with 22mph wind. I get the temperature from a probe outside our window rather than off the tv or internet as they are always way out from where I am. I would like to see it get a bit colder this year so I can test out my windstopper a bit.

I've just remembered a job I had at a bacon factory which had a chill blast room that was between -18C and -22C which felt really cold on an open forklift truck at 10mph, but then again I was just sitting there doing no excercise so I could only do it for 30 minutes at a time. Then I would go outside where it was -2C to warm up.

Too hot in July and August? Dude, I grew up in Ballston Lake and I don't ever remember it being too hot in the summer. In fact, I don't remember it ever going above 80. Now, the black flies, that's a different story. We pretty much rode all year long, except when the snow got really deep. Really deep there is above six feet.

I live in Milwaukee now, which is gets dammed cold in the winter. In fact, sometimes in January we are colder than Alaska. Windchills can go to 60 below farenheit here. To be fair, normal winters the temp ranges from about 10 below to the high 20s. The problem here is the wind. We had gusts of 55 mph today with a falling temp.

What do you people do in high winds? they are a pain to ride in.

Are you serious? It's not uncommon for the temps to hit mid to high 90s in the summer, and with the humidity, it gets brutal. Certainly not too hot to ride, but it does get hot.

I'll be riding through my first winter this year. I do live in the Buffalo NY area so we get plenty of lake effect snow. It tends to only be in the single digits for a few morning each year (maybe a week or two). Most of the time it tends to be a bit below freezing. The biggest issue will be dealing with the snow banks and making sure there is enough room on the road to ride with reasonable safety.

Happy riding,
André

MN rider here. Recreation on the weekends with my cyclocross bike and frozen lakes
and trails with my Surly Pugsley. During the week, try to commute most every day.
Using the cyclocross or my rigid fork mtb.

MN rider here. Recreation on the weekends with my cyclocross bike and frozen lakes
and trails with my Surly Pugsley. During the week, try to commute most every day.
Using the cyclocross or my rigid fork mtb.

I'm another MN rider. Just curious which bike you use for commuting under which conditions. I have an MTB
that I've used all the time in the past. It's got big fat studded tires. It's fine for ice, -not so fine for slop where it floats and slides on top. It's also tiring for longer distances.

I've had a couple of seasons where I rode straight though but that was a while ago. Feels positively tropical here in Massachusetts compared to most of you!

Too hot in July and August? Dude, I grew up in Ballston Lake and I don't ever remember it being too hot in the summer. In fact, I don't remember it ever going above 80. Now, the black flies, that's a different story. We pretty much rode all year long, except when the snow got really deep. Really deep there is above six feet. .......

What do you people do in high winds? they are a pain to ride in.

We have been getting alot of 90's here the last few years, must be that global warming thang. This year it was the 100% humidity most days between June and September that really sucked.

Winter winds aren't a problem most days I wear windproof pants, nylon ski pullover, balaclava, ski goggles and gloves.

I'm another MN rider. Just curious which bike you use for commuting under which conditions. I have an MTB
that I've used all the time in the past. It's got big fat studded tires. It's fine for ice, -not so fine for slop where it floats and slides on top. It's also tiring for longer distances.

I use my cyclocross bike(2000 Jake the Snake) with Michelin Cyclocross Mud tires for
light snow and dryconditions. If it gets icy, I have a Nokian studded tire for the front. I use my hardtail
MTB for when there is two or three inches of new snow. I have a Nokian studded tire on the front as well, so also for a ice storm type of weather I also use the MTB. Hope that helps.

I'm another MN rider. Just curious which bike you use for commuting under which conditions. I have an MTB
that I've used all the time in the past. It's got big fat studded tires. It's fine for ice, -not so fine for slop where it floats and slides on top. It's also tiring for longer distances.

I'm using my Specialized Expedition hybrid this winter, have inverts on it now but have a set of studs for ice..
Whole rig is 1 - 2 mph slower than my regular commuter but hope it works well on ice/snow..have 10 miles each way mostly hills..St Paul to Eagan MN.

Wind? I just go to granny and go slower..high winds or gusts in the forecast and I drive...hate to go backwards or get blown over....

I am in Hibbing, MN. Last year I studded up some tires and did laps on the lake.

The thing about really really cold weather is that its pretty unlikely the wind will blow when it gets down below -40F, the reason it gets to -40F is that some super cold air is stalled and sits in one place, if the wind would blow it would actually get warmer.

A little prep and its not too difficult to get along when its silly cold but things do tend to break more, metal things.

This winter has been a piece of cake so far, about 1 foot of snow on the ground and moderate temps

St. Cloud, MN here.
Riding a Bianchi Milano. Second winter, going a shorter distance though.
Can't wait!

i find it interesting that a lot of you are from the states, and hardly anyone from say, toronto like me (which is about the same latitude)... from my perspective, "north" starts about 5 hours from here.

Hit -36 celcius in Saskatoon today. Wasn't too bad though, not too much snw so the ride is still pretty fast. They are talking about 5cm of snow tomorrow so it should be a fun ride.

Winter has finally hit us although we aren't as cold as the guys just east of us...

On the ride home it was -17 C with a wind chill making it like -27 and thankfully...the wind was at my back for the 10 km I rode.

The coolest thing (no pun intended) was that the bike co-op I volunteer at was really busy despite the cold.