I commuted the other morning at 25° F and I learned that was below my limit. My fingers were hurting badly. My gloves were obviously not up to the task. I think the rest of my body could tolerate it, but I was close to my limit. So if I can get some better gloves, I might do it again in the 20's, but nothing less. Luckily it's very rare for it to go less than 20 here.

Tomorrow morning will be in the single digits and my limit. Hope to ride Tuesday it's suppose to be in the mid teens.

Folks, I'd like to encourage you to put your locations in your profiles. It makes things interesting.

I am in Quebec way up in Canada. The wind here makes a big difference to me. It was 21 F here today but the wind was 40 mph. Not so bad with a tailwind but as a headwind my face froze up fast. Without much wind I am happy to 5 F, below that things freeze here and there.

I'm in the area of Guelph, Kitchener and Toronto Canada. I ride every day all year long. Many days I don't know what the temperature is let alone the temperature plus the windchill. I just dress appropriately and ride. A lot of my rides are in the 30 km range. Good mitts are a must. I layer my mitts just like I layer my clothes. That way if I do have to do a roadside repair (fortunatly a very seldom event) I can remove the outer mitt and do the repair w ith my inner mitt/glove on.

Cheers

So a couple days after posting this it got cold in Chicago. It was around 0 to single digits M, Tu, and W. What happened? My hub pawls froze half way through my 9 mile commute. Had to lock it up and take the L, not too bad. I think my "line" would be warmer if it wasn't so easy to quit.

Edit: This happened on Tu morning. Hub was fine on M. Walked it home that night and swapped wheels and was back on the road W.

Well I picked up new gloves and rode to work this morning in super cold weather (20° F, 13° F wind chill). My fingers stung a little by the end of the ride, but it was better than my old gloves. Other than my fingers, everything was warm. Had 2 pairs of socks, t-shirt, sweat shirt, sweatpants, partial face mask, and a hooded jacket.

So my new limit is probably 20. Any lower and my fingers would start to really hurt.

I pushed my limit down last week by using my new ski helmet. I don't know what my new limit is, but I suspect it's under 20ºF. I'm having fun! Bear in mind, my commute is almost 14 miles long, so I don't want to lose much heat. If I do, it gets painful. I rode yesterday in about 25º with stiff headwinds. I was getting warm, so I removed the hat from under my helmet. That was a bad idea. My head started to hurt, so I put the hat back in.

Ouch that's cold. For the real cold riders like you, riders will use a thinner lube for the hub. Try some tranny fluid. See what your LBS mechanics recommend.

The most common time that I've had things freeze up has been a colder day after riding in snow/moisture during relatively warmer temps (20-32F). During the warmer day things get wet and moisture works its way into cables and other components, then while the bike sits it freezes up before it has a chance to evaporate.

Grease and lube might get stiffer during extreme cold but it probably won't freeze without additional moisture.

Just this week rode in 5° F weather, my new low record. Learned a bit more about underestimating needed gear, though if I had been doing more than the 2 miles each way I normally do it probably wouldn't have been an issue. Today though, my rear tire hopped off the rim and got wedged in between it and the brake pad. Had to let air out of the tube to get it back on and couldn't ride it at that low a pressure for fear of damaging the tire. When on my way back, it decided it wouldn't stay on no matter what I did and I had to carry the darn thing 3/4 of the way. Thank goodness for aluminum frames.

28 degrees Fahrenheit

I rode 15 miles to work this morning in the heaviest cold headwinds I've ever faced. I didn't get cold, but it is a new record for me. It made me late. I'm still at work, working towards a deadline. I believe the winds haven't shifted, so I should have an easier time going home unless the snow starts before I get home.

Update: The swapped wheel was not my preference, so I took the wheel with the freeze-prone hub and flushed it. First with degreaser and got a good bit of brown liquid that came out at the other side. Presumably this was crud that was holding water that froze. I let it bleed out overnight then flushed with WD-40 a few times the next day. Let bleed again overnight. Lastly, I 'flushed' it with cold weather rated chain lube. Not sure if that was good idea but I did it anyways hoping it would prevent water from intruding going forward. I did some rides at 8-10 degrees this week and it worked fine. I think it will make the rest of the winter.

When farts frost... That's when I draw the line.

I did as low as -15f wind chill last year; not as cold this year, however. I was quite frustrated trying to muscle through 4 inches of packed in, iced over nonsense that our city refused to treat ahead of time...took me over an hour to get less than 7 miles down the road. But, now that I know what to expect in those conditions, I'd do it again.

It's all about mounting the right tires and wearing the right gear.

When my whiskey or rum freezes then I figure it's getting a bit chilly outside.

Seriously though, with the right equipment the limiting factor isn't the cold or even the cold + windchill factor + the bicycling speed factor;vthe limiting factor is how deep the snow or drifts are and also what kind of snow it is. The packing snow snowmen are made of is a lot denser and harder to get through than is powder snow.

Cheers

Didn't any of you people read Jack London's "To Build a Fire" when you were kids? Don't talk about cold until you hit -75°F. And then not until you've killed your dog to warm up your hands. .

Haven't found a limit yet, but I've not had to ride in temps than -10F, not considering wind chill. It just has happened that in my biking to work it hasn't dropped below that.

It all rolls down to clothing. I haven't found a temp so far I couldn't prep for. That being said, if its SUPER ****ING COLD I bring an extra coat/layer in my bags in case I have any issues and need a dry layer over things.

Seems like a good start. Moisture out, thin lube in. As long as there is not thick grease in there.

In my personal experience after about -10F it doesn't feel any "colder." It just hurts more when you have any exposed skin. (Which you shouldn't have at those temps anyway.)

Also, important to note, humidity plays a huge part in how cold these temps feel. Humid places like much of the east coast feel much colder than dry places like here in Bozeman.

figured I'd update, I got my dressing figured out and now commute at 10-13 degree mornings every single day