Originally Posted by
bijan
It's a bit easier when you are in colder climates. Snow/ice makes driving suck too, especially for short distances (even worse for waiting at a bus stop). If you don't have indoor parking you have to scrape ice/snow off your car. Your car is freezing and takes 5 minute or more to warm up. Even if you drive carefully, when someone else skids on the road you have to pray that you kept enough distance since there's often no way to get out of the way...
It's like when people ask "what should I wear to be warm enough to bike in x degree weather?". It's pretty much what you would wear to walk in that temperature except more windproof and less bulky
Or when people ask "how can you bike to work with all the rush hour traffic?". When rush hour traffic often makes biking even more attractive because the time difference isn't so big (or negative)...
But I agree that it seems there is always some temperature that is too out there and where I'm not prepared for... And then there's someone out there who thinks that's a nice warm ride...
+1
If you ridden when it's in the 30's then you have ridden air cold enough to produce a lot of snow. It's the air temp in the layers above us that matter.
To me the cold is the least challenging part of riding in the winter except for the few *really* cold days we get that my clothing is borderline for.
People ask me all the time how I can ride when it's so cold but they don't ask skiers or snowmobilers the same questions.
It's all a matter of dressing right. Most of the people that work in my office park about 6 blocks away. After they get to their car it's probably another 10 minutes before it warms up. Most of them aren't really dressed to be outside for an extended period, so on extra cold days they're freezing.
So by the time their car warms up I'm halfway home and probably sweating a little bit (though I try to minimize that).