How Cold and Wet Does It Have To Be Before you Cancel A Bike Ride?



Gore-tex is good for rain an wind, fleece is good for cold. In general, synthetic materials will be better in inclement weather conditions.
 
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Originally Posted by SierraSlim .

[COLOR= #0000ff]Impressive, i1toride![/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]Can I ask what kind of gear you have that helps you enjoy such rides? I'm gonna need to know, cuz I need to be on the bike!! [/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]Thanks for the input![/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]Sierra[/COLOR]
Well, firstly, I used to surf year round for 25 yrs or so even to the point of having frost in my hair getting from water to out of wetsuit and into dry clothes so that conditioning to the foul weather made anything on the bike seem nicer. My main foe on the bike is gonna be wind chill so it's all about layers. I don't buy all the fancy bike gear but do have long leggings, full finger gloves, headband/ear warmer, winter socks, thermals to go under stuff, rain jacket to over layers to stay dry and wind proof. I wear bigger rash guard surfing shirts for biking where they fit like normal XL T shirts because they dry instantly from rain or sweat and are usually 50 SPF, normal lycra padded bike shorts, padless loose fitting bike shorts over them if need be, 2 prs of gloves & extra thick or extra pr of socks if need be.......just whatever the situation calls for. Mostly my ears/face/head, hands & feet is the focus of staying warm whether wet or dry. Surfing booties or gloves make nice warm and dry hands/feet & more functional than layers sometimes. I could just ride in my full wetsuit in a blizzard to kill windchill but I'd die of heatstroke. Tried to wear it as a Halloween costume one time and it was 30 something and found out then that Antarctica is the only place I could get away with that. Most of what I wear is a mix of multisport clothing that can be used not just for their main purpose. Not gonna lie that it may be restrictive to stay warm and alive in some of it but hypothermia is not my friend. I will take performance loss over that anytime, besides, I'm out for fun not to earn living doing any sport or collect trophies so it matters not. The exercise and being out in nature is the reward. Me and the bike getting back from wherever is trophy enough, lol. I am the engine in most of my leisure activities. Synthetic stuff outerwear for camping, hiking, biking, surfing or any outdoor sport can be used. Just gotta source out cost effective stuff that covers your needs, doesn't necessarily have to be bike specific. Online bike parts places like Nashbar, Jensonusa, performancebike, cambriabike, icycleusa, bikeparts.com are good places to save money on clothing over bike shop prices. Plus all the outdoor sports stores can be good for clothing sales. Used to be that everything except full bikes were always cheaper online but nowadays that has tightened up somewhat so I suggest just comparing prices + shipping and hunt around for cost savings. I am not financially independent so I'm always searching out bargains on quality lasting stuff. It takes time to build your way into any sport so just keep adding to what you have as you add to what you do and your gear will grow with how much and how many different things you do. No sense diving in and spending 10k on gear for something you end up not really liking or doing for more than a little bit so just ease into things as you ease into longer rides and different terrain and challenges and before you know it you have most things covered and enjot all of it instead of stressing over just surviving it.
 
[COLOR= #0000ff]What a great post, i12ride![/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]I found it right after I finished spending 3 hours looking online for affordable cycling clothing. Because I appear to be one of the few female plus-size bikers (translation: fat, /img/vbsmilies/smilies/redface.gif) in America, there simply isn't much that fits me, to begin with. I know cycling clothes are supposed to fit snug for no wind resistance and all that -- but WTH is up with a size 2XL -- which would be size 20-22 in normal women's clothing -- being a size 12-14??? Are you kidding me?[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]And when I do manage to find something that may actually fit me, it's usually a) hideously ugly, with garish colors and patterns, and b) outrageously expensive. I consider myself -- and my friends agree -- to be a classy dresser, and I shop at mid-upper clothing stores like Macy's and Nordstrom's. So I'm not one who is used to paying only Walmart prices -- and I am OUTRAGED at the price of biking clothes! I will NOT pay $100 for one short-sleeve jersey; that's insane. Which of course is why it just took me 3 hours to find something that was neither hideous nor exorbitantly priced. Grrrrr. [/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]I loved that you said, "[/COLOR][COLOR= #000000]Synthetic stuff outerwear for camping, hiking, biking, surfing or any outdoor sport can be used. Just gotta source out cost effective stuff that covers your needs, doesn't necessarily have to be bike specific[/COLOR][COLOR= #0000ff]. [/COLOR]" I was actually trying to find non-cycling-specific things during my search. The problem for me is that I thought maybe I really need the cycling-specific jerseys and jackets because they have the mesh underarms and mesh panels on the back for when riders get too warm. Being overweight and out of shape (but working on it!), it's easy for me to go from feeling really chilly at the beginning of a ride to fairly overheated 20 minutes later. So I don't know if certain windbreaker-type jackets WITHOUT the mesh panels would keep me warm without making me too hot, or not. But at the price of biking clothes, I intend to find out, so thanks for the links.

[COLOR= #0000ff]I have my work cut out for me, lol. Here's to better biking through good shopping. Frugal Hubby would be proud of me! /img/vbsmilies/smilies/tongue.gif[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]Thanks for all the info![/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]Sierra[/COLOR]
 
I won't go out if it's raining unless I have to like when I'm commutting home from work. I won't go to work on my bike if it's raining. There's nothing enjoyable about cycling in the rain, as soon as you start to get wet the whole experience can become unpleasant. I'm not as bothered about the cold because with the right clothes on you can soon warm up, but wind and rain and my bike stays put in the house.
 
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Only riding in inclimate weather by choice can there be fun to be had. Muddy sloppy enduro sessions cleanse my soul. As does riding in the snow, being refreshed by soaking rain in summer on hot road blast, darkness on either type ride. Dry cold is like being supercharged vs. searing humid blazing hellrides of summer. Wet cold on either kind of ride challenges your reasoning for putting yourself in that situation but is rewarding when you push thru the demorilization of it. Most rides are hot daytime dry trails and road routes so any out of the norm riding thrills me...I seek it. But, I crazy like that, lol. Gotta have the right gear and be prepared as much as possible for whatever ride you are attempting. Don't get me wrong, I've been on some miserable rides for different reasons but in the end it was still better than not going.
 
[COLOR= #0000ff]Hi Decca and i1toride![/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]Decca, I'm with you; I can't find anything pleasant in it when I think about riding in the rain. I've always hated being out in the rain, even as a child, because it meant the sun wasn't shining, and I am a sunshine girl -- though a schizophrenic one because, as a fair-skinned redhead, I stick to the shade, LOL. But I LOVE the sun -- and rain just makes me sad. Not to mention cold, achy, and miserable, lol. (Unless, that is, I'm home for a romantic evening with Dear Hubby and there's a blaze going in the fireplace.... then I kinda like the sound. I just don't wanna FEEL the rain.)[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]i1toride, I hear what you're saying, and I actually know some people who feel the same way. But I just don't GET it. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/confused.gif To be 'rewarded for pushing the demoralization of it", to me, is like letting some thug to beat me up so I can enjoy the relief when he stops, lol. I like to push myself beyond what's comfortable, in terms of distance and intensity, to go farther and faster than I did the day/week/month before, so I get that part of challenges. But that's hard ENOUGH, even on nice days, without trying to do it on miserable days. Biking has changed me so much in just a few months that I'm wondering what other changes are in store. Maybe once the actual exercise itself isn't such a challenge, I'll be up to riding in harder conditions. So maybe some day I'll be out there with you, riding away through the mud and the drizzle and the fog and the cold.[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]But not for a while yet, anyway. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/tongue.gif[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]Thanks, y'all, for the discussion![/COLOR]
 
Similar to Rocket Man, my ride induced hypothermia was caused by riding in cooler weather with insufficiently warm clothing. I like to ride in the early morning when no one else is around. One morning I woke up and wanted to ride but it was a little cooler than I realized. The temperature was right around 40 degrees but I figured that I would warm up from the exercise so I didn't dress much different other than wearing a long sleeve jersey and a pair of long trousers. I did not factor in the wind chill that I was creating riding at 25 MPH and it just sucked the heat away from my body. I began to get a little disoriented and had a few close calls before getting home. After getting into the house, I was shivering uncontrollaby and tried to get warm by jumping into bed with several blankets piled on top. After about 15 minnutes, I was still shivering, so I jumped into the hot tub with the water temperature tuned up and stayed there for a couple of hours until my core temperture was pretty close to where it should be. Lesson learned: dont ride in cold weather without the right gear, and factor in the fact that you are going to be creating a wind chill, even on calm days.
 
I took a non-cyclist friend on a winter ride last year. She is a runner and is used to her core heating up fast during excersize and isn't used to the windchill. I tried to get her to dress better, but she was convinced she would overheat. She was just like you, shivering for a good part of the day, unable to warm up even after a hot shower. . . . she has never ridden with me since :-(


Originally Posted by kdelong .

Similar to Rocket Man, my ride induced hypothermia was caused by riding in cooler weather with insufficiently warm clothing. I like to ride in the early morning when no one else is around. One morning I woke up and wanted to ride but it was a little cooler than I realized. The temperature was right around 40 degrees but I figured that I would warm up from the exercise so I didn't dress much different other than wearing a long sleeve jersey and a pair of long trousers. I did not factor in the wind chill that I was creating riding at 25 MPH and it just sucked the heat away from my body. I began to get a little disoriented and had a few close calls before getting home. After getting into the house, I was shivering uncontrollaby and tried to get warm by jumping into bed with several blankets piled on top. After about 15 minnutes, I was still shivering, so I jumped into the hot tub with the water temperature tuned up and stayed there for a couple of hours until my core temperture was pretty close to where it should be. Lesson learned: dont ride in cold weather without the right gear, and factor in the fact that you are going to be creating a wind chill, even on calm days.
 
living in mich can be a weather nightmare.i have ridden in 10 degrees with light snow but generally anything below 30 degrees i try to avoid.and deep snow can be worse than sand
 
Originally Posted by Rocket_Man .

I have to get in on this one... ...WHOA, this got long...sorry.
I live in Rapid City, SD. Last year was my first "Big Charity Ride"...I planned/trained all summer long for this event, so nothing was going to stop me. The ride was Sept 12-13th. The weekend before the ride was BEAUTIFUL!!! Looked at the 10-Day outlook...its looking good for my ride...Woo-Hoo!!! Could hardly contain myself...I had a hour countdown till my ride started and everything. As the week progressed the forecast got worse and worse. Temperatures dropping to the low 40's---highs in the 60's. Not bad...but the chance for rain was on the rise, by the day before the ride it was 60% chance of rain...and I don't have rain gear. Ugh...better at least get a rain coat!!!
Saturday morning, wake up to look at the radar **sigh** One of those sights that is just a bummer...the whole screen is GREEN with rain. So, I zoom out a little, then a little more, and a little more. I can see all of SD, ND, NE, and part of MN. The rain streaks all the way from about Fargo,ND...across and down through Rapid City...and moving south into NE. Its going to be an ALL DAY rain.
Get all my stuff ready (including my new rain coat), and a vest...for whatever warmth that might give me. I get to the start/finish line. You know, yeah, its 42 degrees and raining...but its not that "bad", and it will warm up throughout the day...right? So I decide to start with just my cycling gear and rain coat. Being to psyched up for the ride and not using common sense...I start the ride. Shortly thereafter, common sense starts to sink in. We are going to be gaining elevation (if I remember correctly about 2000ft in about 25miles, with the bulk of that being in the last 5mile climb). Anyway...as we ride, it seems to get colder...but then, starts to "warm up"? ...SWEET...I thought. Shortly before the last climb I had to ditch my riding glasses...the rain was starting to stick (20/20 hindsight...Ice up). On the climb, I thought I was toasty (although...I now don't remember really riding up the hill, hmmm). There was a rest stop at the top, yeah, we should stop and eat something. I remember having a hard time opening my Clif Bar...odd, my fingers don't want to work.
Anyway...one of the guys in my group suggested that we stop for a while and go into the visitors center that was nearby. Sounds Good! ...I now start realizing, something isn't "right". I had a hard time controlling my bike on the short little downhills (shaking to bad)...but I made it safely.
As we enter the visitors center people were looking at us like we were CRAZY...yes, we are, but still. Something else must have caught one of the ladies eye that worked there that something wasn't right. She took blankets off the shelfs (that were for sale mind you) and wrapped one around each of us...Suggested that we went into the "back room" because that was the warmest room, and brought us some free coffee.
After uncontrollable shivering/shaking/cant hold a cup of coffee for about 45 minutes, stuff starts to make sense. We must have been setting into hypothermia!!! We also find out that the temperature is now 31 degrees out. OH, Duh!!! So, after another half hour of figuring out what to do, we finally call for a ride and some warmer clothes. We get SAG'd around for a little bit...as the rain finally gives way, somehow. We get dropped off about 30 miles to the finish...and ride it in the rest of the way (we had a personal SAG, so she followed us...just in case).
Yeah, we should have figured out the hypothermia during the ride and called for a SAG earlier...but, whatever. One person did have to go to the hospital because of hypothermia...a SAG vehicle saw her and tried to convince her to get into the car, she refused. She later crashed because she couldn't stop shaking so bad (she did ride the next day). Most everybody shorted the ride to the 25 or 45 mile loop (or caught a ride with a SAG). There were a few (who were prepared) that made the full Century ride...7 riders, out of 150.

So, there's my story. Prior to the ride, and now, I call it quits when the temps reach 40-45 degrees. I'll ride in rain, doesn't bother me.
Sorry this got so long.

Wow, Rocket Man. I started shivering just reading your post!

That was quite an ordeal you went through! /img/vbsmilies/smilies/eek.gif
 
[SIZE= medium]Quote from SierraSlim:[/SIZE]

[COLOR= #0000ff][SIZE= medium]BHOFM, I love that you remembered Rocky and Bullwinkle’s hometown! I remembered them well, but not their town. Those were the days…. My very earliest cartoon memory is a little guy that looked like a tornado named Tom Terrific; I think that was pre-Captain Kangaroo, even! Sierra is showing her age… [/COLOR][/SIZE]

[SIZE= medium]I remember watching Tom Terrific. That was almost like watching the funny papers on TV, it wasn't really animated, just changed from scene to ( black and white ) scene. It came on early in the morning in the Southern Missouri town I grew up in.[/SIZE]
[COLOR= #0000ff][SIZE= medium] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR= #0000ff][SIZE= medium]Paramount, that was one thing I didn’t understand about Sioux Falls. I figured, if they were always the coldest place in the U.S. in the winter, at least they would have nice summers, right?? But noooooooo…. I remember my daughter being born in May. It was 106 degrees, and I was trying to figure out how to nurse her without either of us touching each other, lol, because we were both so hot. I H-A-T-E-D that place. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR= #0000ff][SIZE= medium] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR= #0000ff][SIZE= medium]I always thought that was strange too, how a place cold be so hot in the Summer and yet sooo cold in the Winter. ( Dances with Wolves sure makes the weather look nice ) Heck, we only average 13 days per year of 90 degree or above temps here in the Twin Cities. Our Summers are normally very very nice....[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR= #0000ff][SIZE= medium] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR= #0000ff][SIZE= medium] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
 
[COLOR= #0000ff]Hi, Paramound![/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]The Tom Terrific I remember was animated -- at least partially. I'm not sure the background changed much, but he himself would spin around furiously and whiz from place to place, as I remember it. Of course, I could be getting senile, LOL. It was definitely in black and white. Those were the days, lol.[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]And Sioux Falls? My apologies to anybody who lives there/loves it, but it's one of the few places I've ever lived (and we moved a lot, Hubby working for the govt.) that I really hated. I remember my husband saying I would be okay if the power went out in winter, because we had a gas furnace, not an electric one. What he hadn't considered was that the furnace was gas, but the motor that blew the hot air into the house was ELECTRIC. So during one of our blizzards, when he got snowed in at work for 3 days, 30 miles from where we lived, I was alone at home in the blizzard with a 2-year-old and a 6-month-old... with no power. Being newly from Texas and not knowing what to do in a blizzard, I just holed up in the closet next to the furnace with my babies; it was the only semi-warm room in the house. The furnace would heat up, but then it couldn't blow, so it would turn off again. It's a miracle we didn't get gassed to death from carbon monoxide or something. I had tried to get out to go somewhere warmer, but the snow was 3-4 feet deep, and the wind had blown it in drifts against the doors to the house that were 6-8 feet high, so I couldn't get out. I was nursing the baby, so she was being fed, at least. My toddler son and I ate cold sandwiches. It was a disaster. Fortunately, on the afternoon of the second day my neighbor figured out John hadn't made it home, and he came and dug me out, bless his heart. [/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]It's just a cold that people who haven't lived there can imagine. There were old people who went out to the mailbox in snow storms and froze to death, underestimating how quickly they would get hypothermia and get confused and be unable to find their way back to the house. People who got stuck in their cars away from town often froze to death. It was awful. [/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]Anyway, enough of that grimness.... Thanks for the memories of Tom T![/COLOR]
 
I remember that Tom Terrific was animated also. It was a daily staple on Captain Kangaroo. I also like Rocky & Bullwinkle, but I think that the writers must have been doing the really good drugs when they were working. My favorite part of their show was the Fractured Fairy Tales.
 
[COLOR= #0000ff]KD,[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #0000ff]I loved the fractured fairy tales, too!! I can still remember some of them. Those were the days, my friends... /img/vbsmilies/smilies/tongue.gif[/COLOR]
 
Did my first ride of the season with snow yesterday.

Temperature was between 2C to 5C (maybe 35 F to 41 F) throughout the ride - snow came down in a little mini blizzard at one point. But I was plenty warm enough - until we stopped that is. Then it's cold for a few minutes when we restarted after a soup break.

That Canadian winter isn't far off now............
 
[COLOR= #0000ff]You're a better man than I am, Jimbo. I woulda been holding cocoa by the fireplace. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/tongue.gif[/COLOR]
 
Originally Posted by SierraSlim .

[COLOR= #0000ff]You're a better man than I am, Jimbo. I woulda been holding cocoa by the fireplace. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/tongue.gif[/COLOR]

It's a very long winter here if you don't get outside and do stuff........
 
Sunday's ride started at noon. It was 37F with about a 10 mph wind from the north. That weren't too bad; I didn't even need toe covers. Gloves and ear warmers, yes. It was actually quite pleasant. For the next few months, I'll be wishing for more days like that.

The good thing about riding when temps are in the 20s is that it's not wet. I'll do cold and snow, but add 'wet' and I will bow out.
 
Originally Posted by Yojimbo_ .

Did my first ride of the season with snow yesterday.

Temperature was between 2C to 5C (maybe 35 F to 41 F) throughout the ride - snow came down in a little mini blizzard at one point. But I was plenty warm enough - until we stopped that is. Then it's cold for a few minutes when we restarted after a soup break.

That Canadian winter isn't far off now............

I cant wait for a ride in the light blowing snow. Should be here soon!!!