Cold Ride Sunday

[gdrudd13]

Fog can make anything, car or motorcycle, pretty hairy. I've driven in some nasty fog. Not fun at all. Haven't ridden in much on the motorcycle though. It's one of those things I just avoid if I can.

So we had snow the other day and my father in law who is a firefighter responded to a one vehicle wreck and it was a motorcycle. Freezing rain/sleet mix turning to snow and he decided to get his motorcycle out. Was going on a circular on ramp about 40 and hit ice (go figure) and wiped out. I'm not entirely sure riding in that weather would be worth it. Especially on an elevated roadway since they always ice first and since the rain had done a pretty good job of washing away the ice melt the road crews put down.

[Pilgrim]

Fog is the worse...especially frozen fog. Fog makes me nervous, not only do you have to worry about whats out in front of you but also what's coming up behind you. Glad you had a good ride....

[greenbarn]

I haven't seen 8 yet, but in the 3.5 miles to work I saw 4 (2 different groups of 2) a week ago or so. Winter needs to hurry up and go away. I want to ride.

yea, it was getting dark - just dark enough to start to see headlight reflecting back off of the signs.  Saw the reflection off of a yellow sign up ahead, and the reflection was "blinking", as if the sign was blowing hard in the wind (there was no wind) or I was blinking my headlights (I wasn't).  I thought "that's weird-- looks like something (like a cow or person or what-have-you) is walking down the road or something", so I slowed down.  I was only going about 50 to start with.  When I got to the sign, there was a herd of about 8 deer (that number is approximate - could have been 7, may have been 10) just leaving the road ditch travelling on into the field!  Glad I slowed down!

[Troll]

A through cleaning, and replacing the rear tire. When I bought the bike, it had been sitting in a barn for several years,and the wheels developed some kind of a coating on them that looked more like parkerizing than chrome, so I decided to really go at it and get EVERYTHING clean....

[49Reo]

So what arw you doing with the wheels...powder coating, painting, re-chrome, new booties?   Don't be keeping us in suspenders, now!

[Troll]

Got up to 50 for a while last Sunday, but rain and fog all week....now it's 25, and going down more. They are calling for a warm up to freezing by the weekend. I was hoping to get the W out, since there are no wheels on the Drifter just now, but the rain and generally wet and messy streets are keeping my CLEAN spare bike garaged....

[gdrudd13]

Lucky. It's been really cold here for awhile or just kind of nasty out so I haven't been riding. The biggest here issue isn't necessarily what the temp gets up to, but what it would be when you're riding. It might get into the 40s, but it might not even be 30 when you go to leave. Yesterday and last night we got attacked by white stuff so no riding in that for sure. Getting dark so early doesn't help either. Throw all the deer I've been seeing and I'm not real excited about riding this time of year. I haven't seen 8 yet, but in the 3.5 miles to work I saw 4 (2 different groups of 2) a week ago or so. Winter needs to hurry up and go away. I want to ride.

[pcarrell]

Yeah, that cold weather riding really demands the right gear.  Glad you made it home in 1 piece though!

[greenbarn]

I took advantage of a chance, thinking it could be my last chance until spring, for a ride Sunday.  Our church had a Christmas program in the evening going on, and since the Missus GB was already there, I was driving up by myself.  It had gotten up to the mid-high 40s in the afternoon - I had seen a couple of bikes out early afternoon on our trip to town.  I checked the weather and the weather liars said it would be down to 40 or so by 9PM, so I thought I'd take the bike out for a ride.

Left later than I wanted to - so it was dusk on the way there - 8 deer ran out in front of me, but I saw them in time.  Chilly, but not bad at all.

Coming home, much different story!  A really heavy fog set in - I haven't seen fog this thick for several years.  Really weird fog, too.  Most of the time I could only see about 25 yards, but sometimes the fog was just above my head and the road was clear for maybe 100-200 yards.   Then sometimes I couldn't see more than  3 feet in front of the windshield, but I could see stars brightly above me!!  I've never seen such a thick - but shallow (low to the ground) fog!   And it was 33F when I got home!  So much for the 3 degree guarantee!!  I'm just now warming up!