Staying Motivated in cold weather.
 

So...all summer long I would commute to work about 20 miles round trip. It takes me 45 mins to get there. I was so annoyed in the summer when I couldn't ride my bike and had to take my car.

Anyways, lately its been getting cold here in Boston and in the morning I just do not want to get out of bed. I have to wake up early for the commute and instead getting up I lay there and when I have to get up I drive to work.

Any tips or tricks to stay motivated?

Its hard to wake up when its cold and dark but once you get in the habit of doing it gets easier. The key is to start when its not as cold (now) and keep riding as it gets colder. This will help you ease into it while at the same time you will be able to figure out what to wear for every temperature, which is key.

Finding personal motivation can sure be a challenge, and the motivator is dependent on the person. For me, it's all about the stats: set a record number of commutes for the month, a new daily mileage record, monthly mileage record, shoot for a long consecutive commute streak, annual mileage goal, save x miles on the car, etc. I gave up trying to figure out why it works and nothing else seems to, and just roll with it.

My winter commuting got started three years after being a fair weather commuter. We got a six inch snowfall in Nov of '94 and "the season was done" as far as I was concerned. The next morning I got enough grief from a co-worker that I decided "I'll show him." The roads were reasonable the next morning and hence the year-round commuting began.

If we had an FAQ, the answer would be HTFU

I like bike commuting so much, I don't need any motivation. There has to be a good reason NOT to ride. If you are dressed properly, not over or underdressed, within 5 minutes there is little difference between riding in cold vs. warm weather.

There's no trick.

Tips: get up and ride. And having the right clothes will help.

+1 I ride because I like it. It started to save money, but I kept doing it because I enjoy it.

I sold my truck, so we only have one vehicle. My wife doesn't like being without a motorized vehicle during the day, and that's enough of a motivation for me not to take her van

You could always keep your keys in a bucket of water outside. If it's cold enough to freeze the water, then you have to ride. If it's warm enough that you can get to the keys, you'll want to ride

Get a coffee maker that you set the time for it to start the night before. Even better if you can smell it from bed.

Sell your car. :D

Wear your bike clothes to sleep. Seriously. One of the annoying things for me is the amount of time it takes to get dressed in the mornings when you have more layers. I launder most of my bike stuff every 1-3 days anyway so I don't care that I'm wearing them more.

And sleep on your bike.

fify ;)

Howdy neighbor,

I have an ideal reverse commute all year round from downtown Boston (Kenmore Square) to Norwood. It's 14 miles straight and I lengthen it in the nice months, but I only do the straight distance from December to April. I even have the alternative of the Commuter Rail, but I rarely take that.

My main motivation to ride is the fitness factor, and commuting is an ideal way to fit that into my busy schedule. In addition, meeting the technical and physical challenges of cold weather riding is exciting, and getting dressed in the morning assumes the anticipation of an astronaut preparing for a space flight. For me winter commuting produces tolerance to cold and thus enhances the rest of the season. It's like saying "In your face" to Old Man Winter.

All-weather riding also boosts my image as a Road Warrior, and on really bad weather days, I look forward to that perennial question, "You didn't ride you bike today, did you?" See also Rule Number 9:

:thumb:

Finally, one good all-purpose motivation is to realize that almost no matter how you don't feel like getting on the bike, you likely will feel good about it once you hit the road.

motivation for me to bike commute a full 12 months out of the year comes from the satisfaction i get from knowing that i'm more bad-ass than 99.9% of my fellow chicagoans, the vast majority of whom are complete and total meteorological pu$$ies. from november - april, the primary pastime of most chicagoans seems to be incessant, ceaseless b!tching and moaning about the weather, but i'm out there in the elements just battling it out, with the knowledge that i'm simply a harder person than all those other chicago wimps scared back into their cages/cattle cars by a little ice and cold.

being tougher than the others is its own reward for me.

I agree with the others. It's hard (for me at least) but I do it as long as I can. Things that have helped are goals that are slightly out of reach. For this year, Iu wanted to ride 2,000 miles commuting. this will take me until Thanksgiving-ish to complete (although it might be out of reach due to lots of early season rain). When you are close to your goal, and only need a few more rides, it's easier to get out there when the weather is bad. Also, starting early so that by the time the cold weather hits commuting by bike is your default method makes a huge difference.

Sell the car.

Uhhh... No. I sleep nude.

The time to get dressed in the cold is a problem though. I just means I have to get up earlier (ugh).

In cool (not cold) weather I'll ride in my work clothes. It's cool enough to not get sweaty, but warm enough to not be too cold. The period of time with the right temperature for that is unfortunately short.

Can we please stay on the topic at hand?

Since I would have to pay for parking at work, and I am a cheap SOB, that's motivation enough. I warm up inside on my wife's stationary bike, and then half way through getting all of my cold gear on, I feel so overheated that it is a pleasure to go outside. NC is a bit different than MA, but we did have some days in the teens last year. I found it challenging to figure out the right combination of clothing layers. No matter how I dressed, I was sweating by the time I got to work.

Now - getting up in the dark is something that I hate. When it still is dark when I leave, I hate that more. But when I ride to work in the dark and it's dark when I get back home - I wonder why I just don't hibernate!

-Gary

why do you hate sleeping nude?

TMI :(

But yeah I hate having to take longer to get ready so I prep by being already mostly ready when I wake up. (I don't shower til I get home.)


Other things:
- I also have to pay for parking at work and am also a cheap SOB so that also helps.
- I log my miles and don't have much time to ride other than my commute. Seeing an empty day of 0 miles saddens me.
- I'm constantly tinkering with my current MTB/commuter, and there's no way of knowing how an adjustment went without riding it. It's even better if tinkering involves new shiny upgrades, etc.

I see a new poll.

+1

This is at the bottom of his posting:

I used to ride to lose weight.
Now I ride to drink more beer.
My blog: fatguy.org

Now I need to get back to deleting the mental image.

At least it's only a mental image. :)

Don't worry, it's also dark when I sleep.