When is it too cold to ride?

[scumdog]

It is never too cold.
That minus four morning we had the other week when it was snowing.. I went to work on the motorcycle.

And I've seen people race on lakes overseas. Ice racing used to be a big thing on frozen lakes. If they can do 200+km/h I don't see why I shouldn't be able to tootle off to work.

On saying that, if all my gear is wet from the day before I might not head in. If you've got the gear you can do 200km/h on ice, otherwise play it safe people.

There IS the aspect of tungsten studded tyres used by the 'ice-racers' to be considered of course....

[Highlander]

Minor technicality.

[Indiana_Jones]

When Hell freezes over.

-Indy

[marty]

a combination of sub zero (was -4 at the airport last night) and large amount of flushed seal on my trip home, plus knowing that the civil whey trucks are probably spilling their slippery load on my route home precludes me from riding - i have 2 or 3 big gullys to drop into, depending on what way i go, and there is almost always ice in the bottom of them.

[pritch]

Had a new experience this morning on the sheepfeast run. Heading north through the Ureti Gorge, there was a totally white landscape with some cold mist. After a while the outside of the visor strted to accumulate moisture but I didn't want to wipe it in case I just made it worse. When it got so bad I couldn't see properly I thought I had better give it a wipe. Nothing happened. Again (with more vigour but not a lot more success). The outside of the visor was completely covered in ice.

Interesting, but I'm in no hurry to repeat the experience.

[buellbabe]

Until we have a good day's solid rain, I'm staying off River Road until the sand and grit has been washed away. Definitely, it's road conditions that make the call, not the temperature.

I took #1 down to HamilVegas on sat then returned via the River Rd so know EXACTLY what yr talking about! All I can say is thank-god i was following a cop and therefore modifying my speed somewhat cos I also had a very interesting "shimmy"... sod that!

[sAsLEX]

I took #1 down to HamilVegas on sat then returned via the River Rd so know EXACTLY what yr talking about! All I can say is thank-god i was following a cop and therefore modifying my speed somewhat cos I also had a very interesting "shimmy"... sod that!

There was only one little patch of crap on river road when I went through sat morn, and it was well signposted, didnt stop me putting the gas on too early and having the back end slide

[Kjell]

When the bike doesn't start.

Aye or when I hop on the bike, and the contact of a certain part of the body with the gas tank causes lumps in my throat and tears in my eyes.

[Macktheknife]

Don't care so much about the temperature just the road conditions.

Me too, I got good gear for all weather conditions but black ice and such... no thanks

[jord]

its not so much the temperature but the condition of the roads. eg. snow would probably not be the best thing to ride on...-20 would be all good provided there was no ice or snow

[Finn]

Woops, left it outside last night.

[kiwisfly]

For me temperature guage for coldness is when you've had the morning coffee, get out on the bike & the coffee runs through you quicker than dodgy curry. You pull over, undo the layers, try to find the old fella only to discover a piece of flabby skin cause the rest of it's retracted at a rapid rate of knots!
About then it's time to go home.

[Finn]

For me temperature guage for coldness is when you've had the morning coffee, get out on the bike & the coffee runs through you quicker than dodgy curry. You pull over, undo the layers, try to find the old fella only to discover a piece of flabby skin cause the rest of it's retracted at a rapid rate of knots!
About then it's time to go home.

The medical term is Cold Diuresis - A condition where the surface blood vessels constrict in response to cold. This constriction causes greater volume pressure in the bloodstream which is detected by the kidneys. The kidneys will "pull off" the excess fluid to reduce the pressure. The kidneys then excrete the fluid, causing the bladder to fill. This is one way in which the body protects the amount of heat lost at the surface.

I knew my PhD would come in handy one day.

[kiwisfly]

The medical term is Cold Diuresis - A condition where the surface blood vessels constrict in response to cold. This constriction causes greater volume pressure in the bloodstream which is detected by the kidneys. The kidneys will "pull off" the excess fluid to reduce the pressure. The kidneys then excrete the fluid, causing the bladder to fill. This is one way in which the body protects the amount of heat lost at the surface.

I knew my PhD would come in handy one day.

Faaark...you're good
Cheers Finn!

[Wolf]

No idea of temperature: when the ice is on enough of the road to make riding too hazardous - which is enough to make driving too hazardous as well (sure, you can't just slip and fall over but the car has a higher inertia to overcome than a motorbike - a bastard to stop or change direction once underway) and that just leaves walking and risking slipping on the ice and breaking my bloody neck. Sounds like "I can't come to work today, I can't get to work safely" weather.

Like St8 Jacket, I am warmer going by bike as I get there sooner. I also can wear more stuff on the bike than I can actually walk in - screw trying to walk to work in my bulky lined riding leggings. I have a motorbike to transport my warm clothing to work with little effort on my own part! If I can't ride because the weather is too foul, I probably wouldn't be able to walk there either.

So long as the road is negotiable, I'll ride. And I've ridden in some pretty crap conditions - bloody terrifying ones when the road is awash with a torrent, rain is making visibilty difficult, high winds are throwing the bike around and you can see the power wires whipping in the wind and you think "FUCK! If they cut loose I'm screwed." A matter of having to - ride in the storm or leave the bike in an unsafe place and try to find another means of getting home which may not be any safer. You arrive shaken and saturated having spent almost as much time as it would have taken to walk home as you were reduced to a crawl and the fact that you didn't walk doesn't mean you're fine because fighting the winds all the way has expended about the same amount of energy as you would have by walking.

I've spent time on really icy roads and they weren't fun. Reduced to a crawl, slithering and skating, terrrified the bike's going to go out from under me any second, not trusting my ability to brake. Sleet on Desert Road is also not fun at around 2am when you're frozen to the core, unable to see for the sleety crap sticking to your visor, scarcely able to operate the controls because fingers and ankles are seizing up and the road feels like it's been oiled. Once again: I'd arrived into the midst of it and it's "press on because you can't turn back but it's got to be better once you get out of the Gods-forsaken Hellhole" (and it was: once I got to Taihape, got some hot food in me and hit warmer, dry roads I was fine).

Never ridden in snow so I can't comment on it. I'd defer to the wisdom of those experienced in it - if they said "you can't go out in that", I wouldn't (I suspect I wouldn't handle snow as well as those who are experienced in it, so I certainly wouldn't take on anything they were not prepared to).

As Ixion said, theres a big difference between air temperature and road temperature. I've ridden to work over long distances in intense pain from the cold but the road has been perfectly safe to ride on.