Good ride in although I was sore from playing softball last night. It's all good.

60's and sunny, a very good ride today. Rode fast, because I actually had some energy, even though I haven't ridden in a couple of weeks. I work at home, so most of my commuting is running errands.

I started a thread similar to this one on the forum for our local club. When I posted up today that I decided not to ride because of potentially hazardous icing conditions, the admin posted:
Then he posted

To which I replied

60ish. Great weather for a ride. Oddly, I left somebody else in my dust where other riders typically dust me. I think my leg strength is going up.

All of that when I only got something like 5 hours of sleep. ... I had to make my new avatar, ya know...

Crisp, baby! 33F, bright blue skies, brilliant sun. I forgot my beanie so my ears were cold, but I was otherwise cozy in my wool sweater and dress pants.

Slip and slide! Wow I probably made 100,000 crash-preventing corrections as I slipped and slid through my 1.5 mile commute, then again home for lunch. Fresh snow where I could find it was fine; riding in packed snow over ice had me sliding sideways as much as going forward. I arrived sweaty, exhausted, and grinning.

In the afternoon I punted and drove.

30-35 today and sunny. Morning was a little cold, but the ride home from school was slow and enjoyable today. I do think, however, that I need to get a mug holder for my handlebars so I can drink coffee or tea on my commutes!

It finally occurred to me that there is a silver lining to riding home against a 30mph headwind. If some idiot pulls out in front of me, the resulting damage from a 5mph crash won't be as bad as if I were doing 20! :-)

a nice balmy 21F here today, but my commute was in a nice 63F....but i didn't get anywhere since i was on my rollers

I'm getting strangely used to the low temps. It was 13〫F on the ride home and I barely noticed. Granted little or no wind helps a lot.

Someone harassed me with their car tonight. Sped right up beside me and then deliberately right hooked me. Had someone hassle me last night too. The streets are getting narrow with all the frozen snow and cars are parked further and further into the road. Makes some drivers nasty.

I'm wimping out this morning. 39F, raining, and (the deal killer) a stead 22mph headwind gusting to over 30. That combination of wind and rain is enough to put me in the VW today! I actually like calm, dry, and very cold but I just can't seem to get that combination.

Interesting commute this morning, to say the least. Everything iced over, and with a freezing drizzle coming down.

I opted to ride as far as the bus stop and load the bike on board for the part of my ride where I usually am out in the traffic (which is the lion's share). Not only do I not yet trust my solid ice/frozen rut skills, but I do not trust the drivers out there to be able to stop should I dump it in the middle of a multilane arterial.

But I did ride about a mile and a half through the residential part of my ride getting to the bus. It was my first chance to ride studs on a lot of frozen stuff. Interesting. And of course, as soon as I went to put my foot down, I quickly found my butt on the ice, my bike in my lap, and me laughing uncontrollably. I've also come to a new appreciation of why so many winter riders like FGs (cool! another project! )

For the ride home this morning, this week's trend of pushing myself to the end of my reserves on each ride was made all the more difficult by the fact that my seat post slipped down 2 inches. I felt like I was riding a BMX bike rather than a 15-year old MTB...

Bizarre.

I guess I have to readjust and really crank down on the seat tube quick release. I may have to switch out for a traditional hex screw/bolt combo on the seat post tensioner to hold up my Clydesdale frame.

I carpooled in this morning, but I kept looking longingly at the snow: I put knobbies on my folding bike last night, and today would have been a great test. (I still need to tighten the brakes. Maybe tonight.)

It was 32F this morning and my car had 1/8" ice coating it. I decided to ride (to my wife's dismay). It was a pretty good ride, mostly in the dark. I was quite cold when I got to work, but I'm alright now.

My commute today was terrible and has been terrible for 50 days now.

There is a transit strike in Ottawa (50 days now) and my non-bike riding wife requires a ride to work every morning, which means I cannot commute by bike!

The up side to this is that I get to spend more time with my wife. Which is good.

I had to force myself to ride this morning because I committed to two rides for the week and seeing that today is wednesday I figured I had better do it now. It was a balmy 6F this morning but no wind to speak of. This is the coldest temp that I have ridden in and my toes paid the price. The rest of me was fine though. Tomorrow might be a bit warmer.

By the way I've tried all the tricks for keeping the toes warm like bags in the shoes, smart wool socks, toe covers etc etc, but not much luck. If anyone else has any better ideas please let me know.

40F warm and sunny. I was way overdressed.

kgriffioen - I bought a pair of low-top snow sneakers from Lands End on sale for about $25 earlier this winter. I got them about a size and a half too big and I wear wool socks. Before that, my toes were always cold, but now they're much better.

I had to drive today. The ice they predicted yesterday came overnight. My normal 15 minute drive took 35, about the same as it does on bike. The ice was bad though and I don't have studs, so the bike wasn't an option.

Big virtual high 5 to everyone in Philly who commuted today. South Philly was really icy, lots of frozen tracks and ruts. Downtown is slushy, but not frozen yet.

Cold (for me, at least): 34F with a breeze out of the north. I can't imagine the temps some of you guys face.

Didn't get to ride in this morning, had to de-ice the car then drive our son to the babysitter. I then dropped the wife off at work and drove myself in. Today would have been a difficult ride and much more time consuming than usual, there likely would have been some walking and a lot of slipping/sliding. It would have been hard to justify the time expediture-I was more than 2 hours late as it was.

Yesterday's ride home, however, was a lot of fun, I love riding in the snow. The trail conditions varied from: merely wet to slushy, to 3 to 4 inches of powdery snow (on the bridges). The touring tires that I recently mounted and expressed such displeasure in recently really proved their value yesterday. I was able to confidently maintain a 13 mph. average (roughly 80% of my typical avg. of 16 mph) which is much better than the comparable avg. speeds when using road tires (which would likely drop my 20 mph. avg to 50% or less in comparable conditions). They handled the snow as well as or better than some of the CX tires I've used in the past. While they're slow and awkward by road tire standards, they proved to be a good choice for foul weather conditions. So, I guess I'll keep them until March when I can switch back to road tires. I think I'll put my fenders back on the bike tonight, I think tomorrow's ride will be a mess one (slush, water, salt/sand).

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, my rr. deraileur froze up about 2/3 rds of the way into my evening commute yesterday. It was coated with chunks of frozen slush as was the bottom bracket shell. I've had this happen before and, luckily, I was stuck in a good gear. I've never really worried about it before but, how could I prevent it if I was so inclined? Lubricate the der. with some kind of anti-freeze or, keep a heat source (lighter) handy to manually melt the ice? Not a big deal, just curious how others deal with it?

Had a not so great ride into work today. My main commuter (Redline 925) is in the shop so I had to ride my beater 90's era Hardrock mtn bike backup. Was approaching the local community college when a white sedan crossed into the bike lane and almost sideswiped me. I'm usually on the far left of the bike lane to avoid getting doored, but some reason today I was pretty far to right. The car's right mirror was literally inches away from my left hand as the car passed at ~40mph. The car crossed back into the car lane about 10 yards ahead of me and sped off.

I'm not sure if the driver tried to buzz me (it's happend before) or just pure neglicent driving, but suffice it to say, I'm kinda freaked out.