Yep! Ding Ding on yur left :)

Water puddles which are hiding large deep potholes. Late winter/early spring is a pothole season, there are thousands of them and a lot of them hidden under water from snow/ice melt.

you're gonna miss the darkness when it turns spring

I live in Wisconsin so I take all of this chatter very personally :lol:

I don't know if this is on the list already: repairing a flat tire in sub-zero with frozen hands and a Co2 inflator that makes them 10 degrees colder.

Reminds me of the Terminator movie where he gets creamed by the big Co2 truck, liquid nitrogen or whatever it is....his 'bits' freeze up and he shatters in a heap on the floor...that's me.

http://tent.bike/images/term.jpg


Also reminds me of a time I was working in Mississauga, Canada in January. There were six of us (all from the UK) installing a machine at a factory in town during one of the coldest winters in decades.

We came out to the car after work one night to find it with a flat. The six of us crammed into the car and ran the heater while we worked out what to do. (We were all engineers so it required a lengthy meeting and discussion to formulate a plan of attack :) )

Eventually we decided to repair the flat in shifts. The first guy jumped out and loosened the wheel nuts then jumped back in the car to warm up. The next guy jumped out and slid the jack under then got back into the car to warm up. The next guy got out and wound the jack...... It took us almost two hours to replace the wheel and get out of the parking lot...:thumb:

This is why I'm nervous about riding in the winter....:p

47). Deciding not to ride because there are too many hazards.

disassembling/reassembling the rear derailleur cable housing to deice and free up frozen shifting in sub-zero with frozen hands that makes them feel 10 degrees colder IN THE DARK!

yeah don't clean your bike w a little water when you get home even if it's above freezing if you're gonna leave your bike outside overnight and not check your shifting before you take off in the morning. ugh. tough lesson that morning!

Moisture getting into the shifter cable and freezing, forcing you to ride to work single speed.

If you're going to clean a bike in low temps, i would use maybe 91% alcohol vs water. Sure, there's water in that too, but you can also light the alcohol on fire if needed. ;) :D

- Andy

Icy road, chain Reaction, rear enders ..

48) Beard Freeze
49) The snots
50) Sweaty back and frozen hands

51: walking inside a warm place before taking some layers off.

- Andy

52) Snotcicles

Half of the replys in this thread have more to do with inconviniences and discomforts then the actual hazards and dangers.

53) SOP for bus drivers here, when the road is icy or covered in packed snow, is to stand on the gas and wait for the bus to move. Which makes for some highly polished and deep ruts.

54) Piles of brown sugar snow at intersections.

55) Slush at just the right (i.e., wrong) temperature caking and re-freezing in my bike's fenders.

As an Alaskan, I respect neither your numbers nor your "winter". Real winter hazards:

Frozen footprints and ruts:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y.../frozenmup.jpg

Roadside plow chunder:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...y/crudwalk.jpg

Sidewalk plow chund..OMG those are boulders:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...y/c_stpath.jpg

Sun driven melt/freeze cycles:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...y/IMG_0822.jpg

Air temp driven melt/freeze cycles:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...y/IMG_0901.jpg

Wind drifts:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...ey/drifts1.jpg

Snowplows after you leave your bike at the bar overnight:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...y/s_nobike.jpg

Shoulder pain from carrying your bike home because: surprise blizzard!!!:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...ey/snowday.jpg

Back pain from pushing your bike home because: didn't read the forecast:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...ndompusher.jpg

Having to bite your tongue when a bunch of southern pansies whine about cold clothing in a region where the low is 40ºF:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...ey/kidding.jpg

I respect anyone who bikes year round, especially those of you who bike in the summer down south. I'm pretty sure that I would die a miserable, melty death if I tried to ride in 100ºF plus temps. Seriously, if you push a bike pedal to get where you're going, no matter the time of year, you're doing it right, and I love you for it. Every one of you is awesome, or, as the kids probably just stopped saying: mad props.

Also, street Zambonis:


http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...y/icedanch.jpg


http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...ley/slick2.jpg


http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...y/icy_path.jpg

I think you just summed up a good part of my life neighbor, and you just showed them the highlights. Let's not forget Anchorage's bike friendly drivers, infrastructure, and political climate :roflmao2:. At least getting to work and life is never boring.

No complaints, it is still better than ice fog, darkness, and the normal month of -50F in Fairbanks where I lived for over 20 years -- kind of an almost tropical paradise really.

Love it! Minneapolis knows what winter riding is... I mean, what's up with "wet leaves"? That's October (Fall riding); Winter.... winter is riding in snow, on ice and in polar vortex cold, that is WINTER RIDING! ;)

Funny story (at least I think so); my first winter-commuting season was the winter of 2011-2012, the coldest morning that winter was 5F.... I remember biking home in a T-shirt in January, it was 50F! That was not winter biking! Last winter, THAT, that right there, was winter biking. I lost count on the number of days that started below 0F; snowbank piled 10 foot and more. Ride the roads cause nobody could clear off-road paths. And #18 above, for real, that was brutal!

I even got the #25 question this morning??? It was 40F, felt great!

Yes, a cyclists on the blind side of a truck is virtually invisible in the dark or wet even with good lights.

That's right, but don't confuse that with me looking forward to that crap. I'll take this fall stuff for as long as it will hold out, wet leaves and all!:thumb:

+100.1!

We have trees that hold onto their leaves into the first snowfall quite often.

There's a difference between arctic weather areas and a place like where i live.... we see over 100 in summer, and below zero in winter. We also have leaves, storms where it alternates between sleet and snow, the list goes on......

- Andy

I don't mean to offend any of the true Northern climates (temps well below freezing and months of snow cover), I just giggle when some people talk about winter and cold weather riding. I know that Minneapolis riding is nothing compared with winter biking in AK. Or, a friend that lived in Montana for a few years, he'd ride temps much colder than the -25F we occasionally see here. I also giggle at other MN riders with full balaclava and goggles on when it's 45F - I'm in knickers and a wool jersey with the sleeves pushed up (& sweating).

It should also be noted: I am a giant a $ $

We did have one day of real winter here this year so I get to chime in with my one trip experience. My big surprise hazard: chain frozen to the cogs and rear derailleur! I got overconfident and up-shifted, not realizing that the chain moving over the gears was the only thing keeping the ice off. Chain sliding over, then frozen solid when I stopped. You can't shift, you shouldn't stop, who knew?

56) Iced up drive train

Darn, Alan S beat me to it post number 22, so this should be 35) freezing drive train