lil brown bat

Making plans already...I'm going to acquire the Coffee Bike (old-skool hardtail mtb) to help me make it through. I won't be the only one out there, but there won't be the numbers we have now. I rode the trolley last winter, I'm never doing that again.

DataJunkie

I am looking into things to make my life more enjoyable for next winter. I rode the train and used my trainer way too often. I think a set of studded tires and new wheels may be in order.
One can survive without them in Denver but I would like to see if they improve my commute any. No train and no trainer would be wonderful.

apricissimus 

I just figured out what you meant by the s word.

Honestly, the only thing I hate about riding in the winter is all the damn road salt. Cold, snow (oops), darkness... I can deal with all that. My bike (and me!) gets absolutely coated with the salt though. And that stuff doesn't totally wash away until April.

savethekudzu

You know you're a real bike commuter when...

...rain four weekends in a row is fine as long as it means your weekdays are dry!

urbanwhitetrash

+1

DataJunkie

We get magnesium chloride here. Tastes wonderful let me tell you. However, I have mups that get plowed for a good portion of my commute. Still about 10 miles of low traffic roadways.

...must...stop...thinking...about...winter

spiker

you check the wind direction rather than the precipitation on the weather channel

chipcom 

Sometimes I think the damned cinders they use out west is worse than salt. It eats brake pads like snack cakes (good reason for discs) and helps to create an interesting goo in your cassette, BB and assorted nooks and crannies.

lil brown bat

Cinders? You're kidding, right?

I'll never forget last winter...on a cold snowy evening, waiting an hour for a bus that was (of course) crowded like the last helicopter leaving Saigon...bus sloooooowly lurching its way down Comm Ave...sidewalks filled with people who couldn't squeeze onto a bus or trolley and had to walk whether they liked it or not...and in the middle of it all, a scattering of bike commuters, chugging along, going slow but getting there as well as any of us and better than most.

"That's it!" I said. I'm never riding that bus again if I can help it.

Winter76

That has happened to me on more than one occasion.

Jim from Boston

[You've got a wedding to attend on a Saturday and you have to make a detour to the office because that's where all your dress shoes are]

So true, and when you arrive all dressed up at the wedding people ask if you rode your bike there.

nycwtorres

During bad weather. You're the only one with dry pants because you bike in full rain gear and those silly umbrellas just don't keep your co-workers dry.

Fairmont

You know you're a Southern bike commuter when people say, "Aint it too hot to be ridin' that there bike?"

I also have two pair of dress shoes at work, two belts, and three ties. All I have to worry about is pants, shirt, socks. I know I'll forget the accessories if I don't leave them at work.

I have the best parking space at work: my office. Can't get closer than that.

DataJunkie

Cinders?
I have either sand or magnesium chloride to deal with out west.
Not even sure what cinders are.

sHANDRIL105

Crushed Volcanic rock, not sure if it is pumice or not. We use it here in the AZ high Country. Not sure where else.

bkrownd

- when you realize sometime in the afternoon that you've had flecks of road mud or bike grease on your face all day.

Grim

You have to charge the battery on your second car (Suburban) to get it started. You go buy windshield wiper blades because the sun has rotted them off and you couldn't see last time you drove it.

Once you get it started you find the parking brake is stuck becasue the brake shoes have rusted to the drums because the last time you drove it was in the thunderstorm you were too chicken to ride in 6 weeks back. You get under the truck to bang on the drums and get attacked by the spiders that have been nesting in the wheel wells.

You have to haul a bunch of junk up the road to meet a craigslister to make a swap. You meet him in the same shopping center as your local bike store. You want to go run in to get a Parker tool you need and some reflective stickers but you are ashamed to do it while in the car. You put it off till the next day so you can ride your bike there and park it at the door. (stopping by on my way home from work tomorrow)

huhenio

you ride for 6 hours on the weekend to go to a friends house, and you carry your messenger bag with your work clothes whilst wearing your roadie kit

chephy

This presumes you have two cars.

tedi k wardhana

I moved 35miles farther, and I was sad.....

wait... wait.... that was because then I got a 30 dollars used folding bike, so I could bring it on the bus, (before that, I had to ride that distance when I coluld't get my hybrid bike on the crowded train)
so now I feel sad, because I feel that I now ride less miles, compared to when I lived ten miles from work.

ken cummings

You leave your commute pannier on your bike when you go on club rides.

You start to prefer major highways to get to work.

You pop through intersections when the lights change faster then anyone else in the club.

You have gotten so used to traffic that you have to think for a while when a thread asks how many close calls you've had recently.

Grim

You presume everyone is single here.

Married with two kids and one with a learners permit.

på beløb

- You ride to work, realize you're way too early, so ride home and back again. Eventually finding you've done 100k,

like happened yesterday.

chipcom 

Specifically, volcanic cinders, from Twin Mountain Rock, near Capulin, NM. They were a client of mine when I lived in the area.

chipcom 

In many places that sand isn't sand - it's volcanic cinders.
Especially popular in southern Colorado, northern New Mexico & Arizona and the Texas/Oklahoma panhandles.