Originally Posted by
noglider
cyclomath, where are you? Is that kind of weather unusual in your area? If you're interested, you can toughen yourself up to wintery weather, for whatever you find to be wintery. There is a
winter cycling section of bikeforums where we share tips and stories. I rarely enjoy cold weather cycling as much as warm weather cycling, but I prefer cold weather cycling to not cycling at all. And sometimes when things are tough, I get a nice feeling of triumph when a ride is over.
I find that when the temperature is below 50ºF (10ºC), I need full fingered gloves. In fact, one tip I learned from that winter section is to keep a spreadsheet so I can recall what works in which conditions. I don't use it often, but using it occasionally helps when the season changes. I record date, the conditions, what I wore, and how well it worked.
Hello noglider (or Tom)!
I am in Serbia, the Balkans, southeastern Europe. We have all four seasons here, so pretty much every kind of weather is common - similar to NYC, minus the blizzards (it is just a bit milder here).
I am used to riding in cold and heat but prefer cold to hot weather. As there are no cycling paths in the part of the city where I live and commute (Belgrade, the capital), I ride with traffic, so getting sprayed by both passing and oncoming vehicles when it rains is something I have gotten used to. I do have appropriate clothes too, and also my office at work where I can change and dry my clothes and shoes.
It wasn't supposed to rain that hard yesterday morning. There was only a light drizzle when I left home, but that changed quickly and I didn't have the rain pants on. I did have gloves and everything else, but changing tires with gloves on is harder than without them, especially if you have to deal with the Marathons (not easy to take off and put back on even with levers) and it's harder when it's cold and you are wet.