noglider 

1. What conditions (temperature and wind) are the worst that typically come your way when you're on your bike?

2. What are the worst conditions you've been in while on your bike?

The lowest temperature I can remember is about 8ºF with high winds. I thought it was about 15º*or 20º, and I was wondering why my hands were getting cold so fast. Then I arrived at my friend's house, and he told me the temperature. That was in Boston, which is typically a little colder than NYC.

Here in NYC, we occasionally see 15º or 20º but not many days of that range in a winter. It's more common for it to be above 25º for most of the winter. This past winter, it went down to about 8º, which was unusual. It is often very windy here, though, and it is often very humid, too, so you can get cold wet wind in your face. It is a harbor city. Also, the many tall buildings channel the wind and intensify it.

What is it like where you are in the winter?

dh024

Here in Calgary, Alberta, we typically have dry, sunny winter days that are about -5 to -10 C (14 - 25 F). When we get a cold snap, it can drop to -20 to -30 C (-5 to -20 F). As long as the wind is low, it is still pretty easy to layer up and keep everything toasty warm (actually, it is harder sometimes to keep from overheating).

Coldest temperature I have biked was -35 C (-31 F), which was about -45 C (-50 F) with the wind chill. Honestly, it wasn't that bad--the worst part is trying to keep glasses/goggles from fogging up and toes warm. I have a 45 min commute each way, so some chemical hand/toe warmers really help, and it is often just easier to go without eye protection.

Regardless of the temperature, it still beats driving!

Machka 

When I cycled through winters in Winnipeg, we would get temps anywhere from about freezing (0°C) to about -40°C. Plus, of course, lots of wind.

My coldest commute was -40°C.

My coldest long ride was a century (100 miles) ride I did one February. The temp was -32°C when I started and reached a high of -25°C in the middle of the day.


[HR][/HR]

I moved, and now winter temps vary between highs of about +15°C and lows of about -2°C. And it rains. A cold rain is almost worse than riding at -40°C.

kingston 

My coldest day last winter was -16 F. When it gets below 0 F I find that my motivation to get out on the bike drops pretty significantly.

wphamilton

1. What conditions (temperature and wind) are the worst that typically come your way when you're on your bike?
In Atlanta area, typically in the 20's, no snow, just enough ice to keep you looking. Piece of cake compared to "real" winters.

2. What are the worst conditions you've been in while on your bike?

It was 4°f several days this winter, under or around 10° for about two weeks. But that is an anomaly, the worst that GA throws at us. The worst winter conditions for me were during the 2014 ice storm that infamously shut down Atlanta.

pdlamb

I commuted through 6 or 8°F earlier this year, but the coldest I've ever felt is on those 35° days when it's raining and windy. One of those days I bypassed coming up to my office to get shower supplies (showers are closer to the front door than my office!) and just stood under the hot shower until I could feel my fingers.

jwarner

1. What conditions (temperature and wind) are the worst that typically come your way when you're on your bike?
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It will sometimes get up to like 65-70F with a light breeze in the summer. Miserable.

Winter -- dark, windy, cold.... -40F/C or colder fairly common in Interior Alaska where I lived for over 20 years. I've got it easy now with relatively few -20F to -40F days.

2. What are the worst conditions you've been in while on your bike?

Once hauled groceries home at 85F. Unbelievable.

Winter -- about -55F, between -45F and -55F for over a month about once a year for a long time.

erig007

The worst extreme conditions i had to endure have nothing to do with extreme cold or extreme wind (-36C + about 40mph wind) that i had to endure in some other places further north. Cold or wind is nothing with the proper gears on. What is worst is the indirect consequences of cold.

The worst was in Montreal i believe about 15F, i found out that all the bridges were closed. I wanted to go from Montreal to Longueuil which is on the other side of the river.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lo...63438a7316da2e
Seeing that all the bridges were closed I asked a cop at the police station that told me it was too cold. As if we should stop riding a bicycle because other people are cold. So i found another way to go through without crossing those closed bridges but geez it was the worst experience ever. Ended up walking through 2 to 3 feet of loose snow in woods in the middle of nowhere pushing my bike besides me (my bike is heavy so I can't put it on my shoulders (According to Spitzer tables, walking in loose snow with 20kg load= 20.2kcal/min spent, riding a bike at 13.1 mi/hr = 11.1 kcal/min)), one step at the time for several miles and not knowing where i put my feet on and where i was going (had to go back and forth a few times in this before finding the right path), going over a few 8 feet tall fences with my bike, those fence spikes puncturing my both hands, gloves and panniers, and some other stuff.... Took me 12 hours for the round trip instead of 2. Hopefully, i had enough food and water on me up to hour 10. Should have brought my compass and a few huskies
Reminds me something
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tough_Guy_Competition

scroca

Coldest ride for me so far was last winter in Montana at -26F.

The windiest ride for me was in Indiana with straight line wind at 35mph, gusting to 55mph. That day I got hit from the side by a gust of wind when I was in downtown Evansville. It pushed me off the street, but luckily right where there happened to be a driveway so no harm came from it.

Then there's lightning. I hide from that.

RaleighSport

Rain in the 30's... this is Northern California after all. I'd ride in the teens but the drivers are just too sketchy for that.
Oh we're counting winds too? I've been stuck riding in 30-40 mile headwinds as well.. was a common situation for a while sadly.

Machka 

This ^^

It is amazing how much colder that can feel than -30°C or -40°C. I'll ride when it is well below 0. But I'm very reluctant to ride when it is about 0 with the rain and wind.

dh024

Agreed.

fietsbob

Co Diver on a Bekins moving company van making a Delivery in Alberta in January. Freightliner , not a bicycle.

other guy was not much fun ... and on-road expenses took most of the salary away.



Here, There may be a winter cold wave , snowing for a week .. 2 separate weeks last year.

Columbia River Gorge funnels the much colder air masses behind the Cascades

occasionally, when the jet stream and the weather cell circulation blows east to west ..


Occasional ones, out of the Gulf of Alaska,

typical storm tracks are out of the south west , and On-Shore. Very Wet , but not terribly Cold..

'07 there were cyclones picked up in the 'Pineapple Express' and 120 knot winds blew a lot of timber over.

Every 3rd vehicle a Truck with a Chainsaw in the back , what fell across the roadway was cut and stacked at peoples Houses, promptly.

2_i 

My handlebar thermometer conveniently covers the range from -40C to +50C. The highest I've been riding was +42C and the lowest -30C. With the recent improvement in winter quality, -25C or so became actually a daily riding temperature. Obviously, either extreme is so much more tolerable when riding a bike than when walking.

AbsurdChalk

45° is the worse for me. I still haven't been able to test my long sleeve jersey yet.

It is really windy around 5:00pm

GravelMN

Coldest ever was -15F with a windchill of -25F a couple of winters ago. I ride at around 0F fairly frequently as long as the roads are decent and the weather cooperates other than the cold. Hottest was around 100F (hey, it's northern MN that's about as hot as it gets).

This summer I was struggling with a gravel grinder that I was ill prepared for when a fast moving storm front came in. I was on minimum maintenance road with nothing but corn fields in sight when it caught up to me. The worst of it lasted only about 15 minutes but included a rapid drop in temperature, heavy rain and small hail, and winds reported gusting to 40 mph. I couldn't lift my head because of the wind whipped rain and hail, so I kept my head down and focused about 15 feet in front of me and shifted down to deal with the softening road. As the worst of it passed, I got to a crossing with a paved road and I wussed out as it was still raining pretty hard but the winds were dying down. I had done about 40 miles of the 50 mile course. Wouldn't you know it, by the time I got back to the fairgrounds where the event started, the sun was coming out. Kicked myself for not sticking it out.

krobinson103

Coldest ever was a sleeting -15 degree celcius night ride with a lot of ice on the road. Got about 60km and turned back, but by the time I got home the bike had 8kg of ice all over it. Not a lot of fun! Though the worst was an all day in the rain early spring ride. Got 100km out then turned back. Got 200 for the day but I could barely stand and to stop moving invoked uncontrollable shivering. There are definitely limits.

Tundra_Man 

The coldest I've ever ridden was -14 F. Fingers and toes got pretty cold and my goggles fogged up but really, it wasn't too bad once I warmed up. It freaked my wife out though so she's put the kibosh on me riding below -10 F.

But I can think of two different times where I was the most cold I've ever been on a bike. Riding in the winter I dress pretty light because a couple miles down the road you're sweating. "Dress so you're chilly when you leave the house" is my mantra. This works pretty well except for these two situations.

The first was when it was -2 F and I got stopped for a train for 20 minutes and just had to stand there in the cold. I'd already worked up a sweat so to suddenly stand around damp made it pretty darn chilly. Of course it was one of those times when you think the train is probably close to being done passing, then it stops. Then it backs up. Then it stops. Then it slowly starts moving forward again.

The other time was when it was -6 F and windy and I broke a chain 3 miles north of town. This was the pre-cell phone days so I had to walk (in bike shoes) for more than an hour pushing my bike before I found someone with a phone who let me call my wife. My light windbreaker didn't do much good in that situation. When my wife did come with the truck to pick me up, she was hauling kids so the cab was full. I had to sit in bed of the truck for the ride home. Talk about windchill!

pdlamb

On worst conditions (other than cold):

Misread the weather radar once, and got caught in a summer thunderstorm. With pea sized hail. Small enough to get through the vents and hit my head. The head shots hurt worse than the shoulder and leg shots.

And the worst headwind was estimated by a truck driver (coming the other way) at 50-55 mph. Touring in Wyoming, it took us 5 hours to make 20 miles. The last mile was a 6% downhill or so -- by pedaling I up'ed my speed to a whopping 6 mph!

scoatw

My coldest was -14. Last year I rode in -11.

I've ridden thru three blizzards. The one took me 3 hrs to get home. Snow was knee deep in places. Those are rare, I usually ride in any snowstorm headed my way. And I've ridden thru numerous ice storms.

Getting hit head on with 40 mph gusts in some teen degrees makes for tough going. But thats what winter riding is all about. Being able to give Mother Nature the finger.

wphamilton

Seriously? I get the 2°C rainy days frequently, but anything under about -17°C scares me. It's a whole new level of cold, extreme, that I wouldn't want to deal with.

corrado33

I find that anything colder than -20C feels about the same, just various degrees of pain (biting) from the wind. It doesn't feel "colder" per se, it just hurts worse. Last winter we had two weeks of -30C. I was on an ill-prepared bike. It wasn't fun. (I commute on my bike.)

Machka 

In a dry cold, all you do is add an extra layer or two. When I commuted at -40C, I was dressed for it and didn't feel overly cold. I felt colder on days when I stood at the bus stop in those temps.

You do have to plan a bit more carefully when it drops below about -10C ... I would only ride within walking distance of shelter (not way out in the country), I often rode short loops if I wanted to log a longer distance, I didn't bother carrying water bottles so I made plans to stop about once and hour to drink (that might be back at home or at a convenience store or something) ... that sort of thing.

noglider 

Well, you Canadians and extreme northern Americans are pretty tough. I can't imagine. But I'm glad to learn that our rainy and windy days are pretty challenging, too. I've always thought so.

Last winter, I was riding home at 10pm along the Hudson River. The path was totally deserted, because it was so damned cold, and the footprints and ruts were totally frozen solid ice. I was on my track racing bike with 22mm tubular tires. It is a fixed gear with just a front brake. I fell twice on the ice, and thanks to my practice at falling, I was able to plan my falls. (I was amazed at how I didn't get hurt. The reason I had practiced falling was incidental: I have taught a lot of children and adults to ride a bike, and I took them out to the grass and showed them how to do a "stage fall," where you roll along your ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders. Suddenly, the practice came in handy.) Well, after these two falls, I decided I had had enough. I put my bike on my shoulder and walked up the hill to the street. Of course, I was wearing those bulky road cleats, which amount to wearing teflon coated shoes, while walking on ice. But I managed somehow.

erig007

I've just checked wiki about the climate of New York.
Climate of New York - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
5 months in the frozen rain range of temperature outside of New York city and 3 months in NYC... what a nightmare. Definitely worst than Canada.