Also, you will have to contain your annoyance at BikeForums members in southern climes whose additional preparation for a winter bike ride is to put on a sweater

I ride in winter time, the coldest I ever faced was -33° celcius without windchill factor. My commute is 27.3 kms long one way and I never wear eyewear except on summer night to protect from bugs. I never felt like I needed eyewear in winter.

Just saying, am I a mutant?

From today's ride,

Squirrels
Acorns

I am going to to with an emphatic yes.

Cars, especially under icy conditions - can mow you over
Hidden things under leaves (fall and winter)

Seemingly innocuous puddles that can hide potholes (anytime, but worse in winter) or overlay ice on the road surface.

Great thread; should be a sticky.

Drivers not expecting to see a person out on a bicycle in such cold weather.

I went back and re-read the list more thoroughly:

Missed that one. I have though encountered puddles with underlying ice in random spots, with more than just a thin layer of water, looking like typical puddles of a centimeter or more deep.

I wrote this rule, and amendment to the thread, "The Communtinati":

For me, that’s not a hazard, but a motivation. In my experience, it's always asked in the negative. rather than "Did you ride your bike today?." My wife once chided me on a bad-weather day, "You just want to ride your bike today so you can write about it on Bikeforums."

One of the first and best threads on winter riding I have read on Bike Forums, also in a list format, aptly described encounters with snowplows:

I would like to re-emphasize the seemingly innocuous "puddle". be it winter or midsummer puddles can conceal a myriad of dangers.

This past summer I had a rather serious crash at walking speed- thank goodness I had slowed to a crawl. I was in La Jolla, where it hadn't rained in months. We got an afternoon of rain and that night I took a ride down to the beach for a swim. On the ride home, on my folding bike, there was a large puddle at the base of a steep hill. I rode slowly into the puddle where it eventually got to the depth of my hub when suddenly my front wheel disappeared entirely into a deep ditch pitching me forward over the handlebars. I smashed my wrist, chin and split my helmet in half.

not fun.

This list is too one-sided (I do understand it's the thread subject but anyway...). how about all the reasons why winter commuting is awesome? To start, way more fun than any other kind of commute. Faster often, when people are stuck in slow cars or buses. Fresh air and exercise. Wakes you up in the morning. You are less prone to winter-related mechanical delays on public transit. The list goes on...

To paraphrase a quote by J. P. Morgan (”If you have to ask the price, you probably can’t afford it.”), if you have to ask about the joys of winter cycling, you probably shouldn’t ride.

44) Sand drifts in the bike lane for months after the roads freeze and the city mostly grinds to a halt that one day in late January.

Good one. That's why my pristine carbon fiber bike is in hibernation all winter.

45) Black ice, often from frozen condensation on roadways when air temps are still above freezing and no precip has been recorded. Can be totally invisible, without even a sheen to warn the cyclist. Areas that are perpetually shady, such as north sides of buildings, are potential trouble spots.

I learned the hard way not to take shortcuts through parking lots, at least not in the dark. The cement blocks at the foot of parking spaces are not always visible, depending on how your lights are illuminating the path in front of you...

In fact, I think the fact that your vision is a bit more limited at night - to the area illuminated by your lights - is really the main challenge with winter commuting due to longer periods of darkness. Then again , I live in California and it never really gets too cold.

I solve that problem by using two lights, one with a wider hotspot, i.e., floodier, and the other with a narrower hotspot, to throw the light way out ahead, farther than the other light will reach. I aim the wider light downward a little bit, so I can see what's close and ahead.

Hey! I sometimes need full fingered gloves too!

YES. Oh my god, every time i run over an acorn i think i got a flat.

To me, every puddle i'm not sure about is a chasm the size of the challenger deep and is avoided with vigor. Yes, sticky!

Ugh, parking lots in winter at night..... I do try to avoid riding non in the lane, if there is one.

I ride a lot of the same routes many times per day etc, so i tend to know what is where, but i try not to turn where i have not seen in the daytime if there is slush or puddles.

- Andy

And on the worst days...

46) Not having the correct change for the bus.

Forget acorns. Horse Chestnuts.

Aesculus hippocastanum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



At least the points/spikes do not cause flats, knock on wood.

I guess it's winter in portland 10 months of the year.

Fall.

Fall.

Metal zippers as pants fly closure. -15°F gets mighty cold and tender tissue doesn't need a nearby heat sink. One lesson was enough to teach me the value of plastic buttons, or sweat pants vice regular pants when cycling in very cold temps.

Metal framed eyeglasses are another frostbite hazard.

Motorists that brake too late to stop and lock up the wheels and slide on the wet streets.