Your COLDEST LONGEST MC Ride!

[fillibuster]

Well I just have to chirp in on this one.Being from Winnipeg it quite often reaches 30 to 40 below zero in the winter. But in the fall/winter of 1974 it did not snow until December 23rd or there abouts. On a bet I said I would ride my motorcycle to University each day until spring. I owned a BSA and a 500 triple kawasaki. Well it was 11 miles one way with a mile up the side streets. The main road was 8 lanes and was not bad. By January it snowed lots and I had both feet out plowing the snow up the side streets until I hit the main road Portage avenue. I had ski pants on and army ww2 issue mukluks with what we call up here, garbarge mitts on my hands. I had a downhill set of ski goggles on and a bellaclava like the one you see the thugs robbing a convenience store with. My Parka was a DEW line issue with a hood that zipped up tight around the face. I rode the COW 500 everyday and never missed. I had the battery set up with aligator clips and took it in to my locker each day. Stupid, you bet, but it's still legendary in these parts.

Rooster, is that you? Buffalo guy?

[pem]

Coldest ride that stands out for me was from Wisconsin to Detroit about 10 years ago. Took the ferry across Lake Michigan from Manitowoc, Wi. and when we landed it was 32*. Left for Detroit and froze. We did not dress for any cold weather as it was July 4th for crying out loud. Our first stop was for coffee, newspapers to stuff in our Jackets and put on our extra shirts. That night after spending all day at museums and sightseeing my buddy took off
his boots in the motel room and his feet were still dark blue from no circulation.

Daaammmm!!!!! That was cold.

Dick

[Ross]

Phil and Joe, two of my favourite dudes. Phil I still have your Christmas card up on my wall of fame in the shop. I'll bet that passenger of yours has made you a grandpappy by now. We had fun on that road run in '91. Joe the Goldeye are being caught just not by me though. Have been following your cannnonball story with great interest. Best thread since the early harley one. We are having a small rally up here on a private farm if either of you guys are up for a ride. July 2-4. usually about 30 of us local folks. Can't believe I admitted to owning a "cowasaki "( incidently the only motorcycle I repeatedly broke bones on-and not on the winter riding either)

[Slojo]

Phil and Joe, two of my favourite dudes. Phil I still have your Christmas card up on my wall of fame in the shop. I'll bet that passenger of yours has made you a grandpappy by now. We had fun on that road run in '91. Joe the Goldeye are being caught just not by me though. Have been following your cannnonball story with great interest. Best thread since the early harley one. We are having a small rally up here on a private farm if either of you guys are up for a ride. July 2-4. usually about 30 of us local folks. Can't believe I admitted to owning a "cowasaki "( incidently the only motorcycle I repeatedly broke bones on-and not on the winter riding either)

Ross
Thank you for the kind words. I fully intended to come up and see you this summer riding the 48 pan. With the Cannonball ride now my priority in life for this years activities I may have to pass on the trip up to see you unless the cannonballer bike builds itself or, the light at the end of the build tunnel shines through the fog sonner than anticipated.
Joe

[Ross]

Completely understandable. If there are any way I could have taken a month off I would be on that run. It will be HUGE !

[Jerry Hatfield]

In 1968 I rode my new BSA 441 single from Montgomery, Alabama, to Daytona for bike week. I got an early start right after work on a Wednesday, as I wanted to watch the Amateur Class 100-miler on Thursday. When I rode out of Montgomery, the temperature was in the high sixties and it was cloudy. I was wearing a 3/4 coverage helmet with face shield, jeans, and my Sears-Robuck blue leather motorcycle jacket with a "priest" collar. In Waycross, Georgia, at about the halfway distance, I bedded down and set my alarm for 4:00 AM. The next morning I was shocked at how cold it was. I had no thermometer and no TV to check the weather, but one thing's for sure -- it was below freezing. The motorcycle looked like an ice sculpture. I was shivering. Somewhere I'd heard about how hobos cope, so I bought a newspaper from the machine outside. I went back in the motel, removed my jacket, donned a sweater and the jacket and my rainsuit, then stuffed newspaper pages across the front of my chest and legs. I bungeed my soft suitcase to the rear of the bench seat. I administered judo chops to the bench seat, and the ice broke off in big chunks. I was fogging up my face shield. I was a little anxious about the BSA starting, but it fired right up. I rolled the bike off the center stand, and selected first-gear. The engine immediately died. I wasn't thinking very clearly, so I repeated the startup and die routine. I realized that the clutch was too cold to disengage, so I put the BSA back up on the center stand and restarted the engine. I selected first gear. The clutch still wasn't working but since the rear wheel was off the ground, the transmission made only a mild complaint. As I watched the spinning rear wheel, I kept the clutch leaver pulled in as I suddenly stomped on the rear brake pedal. This "broke" the clutch plates apart. I rolled the bike off the stand and smoothly rode into the darkness. I looked above the windshield, which was thickly coated with ice. I rode two or three hours. The sun was shining brightly as I pulled into a restaurant parking lot, but the windshield was still covered in ice. In the restaurant, I made a crinkling sound as I, and the rainsuit, and the newspapers, walked to the mens room. I felt like people were watching me -- they could certainly hear me. During breakfast, I handled the coffee cup with both hands. I lingered long after finishing the food, savoring the combination drink and hand-warmer. Back in the mens room, I restuffed the newspaper pages into the rain suit, then made my crinkling walk to the door. The ice had melted from the windshield. The temperature was way above freezing, somewhere in the fifties I'm guessing. I walked back into the restaurant, crinkled my way to the mens room, threw away the newspaper pages, rolled up the rainsuit, and walked out. In another hour I stopped to remove the sweater that I'd been wearing under the jacket. The air was warm and toasty all the way to Daytona.

[exeric]

My cold ride was here in Florida so it's not going be on the order of what our northern brothers have to contend with. It was 1977 and I was visiting good friends in north-west Tampa. I had ridden there on a Friday after work in nice typical winter Florida weather of about 70 degrees. By Saturday night it had dropped to the low 20's and only warmed up to 27 or 28 on Sunday. I had to get back to Orlando so I put on everything I had brought and borrowed sweaters and scarves. I had a '41EL that loved lousy weather so it ran great. It was pure torture for me because my clothing was pathetic protection. I remember riding with my head down so the wind would deflect off the top of the helmet and I would use my peripheral vision to see the white line on the side of the highway for guidance. I didn't have to worry about cars in front of me because I was going as slow as I safely could. The worst part was my throttle hand that I couldn't keep out of the wind. I suffered pain in that hand for 2 or 3 years and even after all these years I can still feel a slight difference to my left hand. Like that joke: Why did the boy repeatedly hit his head with a hammer? . . . Because it felt so good when he stopped. That's how I feel about cold weather riding. On the plus side; the reason I was anxious to get back to Orlando was because I had a date and tickets to see Randy Neuman. . . . We used a car to get there.

[HarleyCreation]

My last winter machine....

Years ago I rode all winter and for a few years didn't own a car. But not like Uke who claimed he NEVER owned a car.

Around 1974 I built a home-make 3rd wheel for an FL and later one for a 45. Around 1975 I bought a c1950 sidecar and then built a full FL sidecar rig with reverse gear, adjustable Hydra-Glide, winter windscreen and leg shields. Even had the Harley winter mitts. Only thing I didn't have was a lap-robe. My brother has that sidecar outfit now.

Winter riding in southern Wisconsin was a snap. But when I moved to northern Wisconsin in 1976 I got a rude shock. It is WAY colder up here. I had an 8 mile ride every day to college and then later to work. I kept that up for 4 years. Some of those rides were very cold. I don't know what my coldest ride was, but sometimes it was below zero F. By then I had a truck I could also use. As I recall it, riding wasn't bad down to about 10-15 degrees F. But less than that and it got pretty brutal. People thought I was nuts and they were right.

I always believed a hot setup for winter riding would be a Big Twin trike in which you could lock the rear end so both wheels turned at the same time for traction in snow. My last winter machine was the 45 trike pictured below. This shows a nice mild winter day in the 20's F. I had it out 3-4 years ago, but just don't have the dedication that I once did. Sad.

[Sargehere]

Great recollections in the thread, so far! I lived in South Jersey in the winter of 1975-76. My transportation was a Honda XL175, a "dual-purpose" 4-stroke with a well-engineered sidecar, of steel pipes, plywood passenger body (22 inches wide) and a mechanically-braked Honda 350 front wheel (rigged to a second handlebar lever under the LH clutch lever) that took me everywhere.

I lived in Glassboro, probably 15 miles from the Delaware river, across from and south of Philadelphia. My girlfriend, a medical student, lived in Germantown, Pa., north and west of Philly. I forget if it was a 40 or 50 mile one-way trip. I had a full-coverage helmet, a kind of qiulted "skirt" that velcroed to the bottom of the helmet, and wrapped a long scarf around that. Inside layers of clothing topped by leather jacket and pants, with 2 pairs of socks and GI combat boots, I was toasty. Average temps were in the 20s in the day, teens at night, IIRC.

For my hands, I had GI leather shells that pulled over woolen 5-fingered "mittens," standard G.I., with the pull straps on the back of each hand. I used a trick I learned a few years before, standing in trenches on guard duty while wintering-over in South Korea: before going out in the cold, I soaked the leather glove shells in water, then wrung them out and pulled them over the dry wool gloves. When the cold air hit them, they rapidly froze, creating another layer impermeable to the rushing air.

I used to drive the sidecar empty, across the Walt Whitman Bridge and up the Schylkill ("Sure Kill") Expressway through Philly all the way to Germantown, NW of the city. I dressed for it. I was also mid-twenties, and still invulnerable; immortal.

On occasions when my 5'11" (I'm 6'1') girlfriend came back with me, she also wore the requisite helmet, and dressed pretty appropriately, but I remember one day when it was sleeting, coming down the expressways that constituted most of the ride. She had a way of folding her long legs into that little sidecar, underneath of herself in a modified Lotus Position I never did quite fathom. When we arrived at my house in Glassboro, on this occasion I had to lift her out of the sidecar and carry her in to the house, and sit her down on the floor register. She thawed out from the bottom up, and gradually opened, like a flower coming in to bloom.
It's great to be young and stupid!

[Chris Haynes]

A few years ago during the summer I were traveling from So Cal to Bridgeport, CA in the Sierra Nevada's. I was riding with George and Carla Threedouble. It was a beautiful hot summer day riding up the San Joaquin Valley, T shirt weather. We crossed over the mountains by going into Yosemite National Park. It was lightly raining as we left the Yosemite Valley floor Elevation 4,000 ft) and started up Tioga Pass (CA 120) 8,500 ft at the summit. We had on rain gear and it wasn't too bad so we continued on. The rain started coming down harder as were rode further from shelter. As the road gained altitude and climbed over the Sierra's rain turned to snow. Our rain gear proved to be ineffective in the weather we incountered. Snow showers turned to a blizzard. Howling wind. Road conditions were unbearable with snow and ice. It is 76 miles over Tioga Pass from Yosemite Village to Lee Vining, CA, elevation 6,781 ft.
Miserable, cold, body's numb from the cold we reached Lee Vining and a small group of rental cabins with a coffee shop where CA 120 meets US 395. There were two bikes parked outside so we parked and made our way in. The woman at the check stand saw us come in the door, dripping wet, covered with ice and turning blue. Her eyes never left us and her right arm raised and pointed across the room. Our heads turned and our eyes followed to where she was pointing and we saw a huge roaring fireplace with the other two bikers thawing out in front of it. While we were there pulling off soaked clothing, ringing out our socks and hanging them on the mantel she sent the waitress from the coffee shop over to take our orders. I was never so glad to find shelter as I was that night.
BTW. Now I have very expensive one piece rain suits and snowmobile suits that are always in my left saddlebag. Lesson learned.

[INLINE4NUT]

Around the mid 70s a friend of mine and myself wanting to get out of the cold rode our FLs from Maine to FLorida in Feburary !!! tThe following year we rode them to Winter Carnival, Quebec City Quebec on a dare but not back a friend was driving a truck and they got trucked back Feburary again today I wouldnt do either for Love or Money !

[HarleyCreation]

Great stories! Cold weather riding has a dubious elite distinction of either toughness or total insanity.

Way back when I rode winters and a few times with my dad in his car and we would see a lone motorcycle out on a cold day he would always purposely rib me by saying: "That's a true biker." Meaning how come I wasn't out there too.

He would ask me: "Why do you want to freeze your ass off on a motorcycle when you could be sitting in a nice warm car?" Now I understand what he was talking about. Too bad he's not around so I can tell him: "Dad, you were right."

[HarleyCreation]

BTW. Now I have very expensive one piece rain suits and snowmobile suits that are always in my left saddlebag. Lesson learned.

I have a similar system for my left saddlebag. Rainsuit, long underwear, boot and glove liners and a down-filled jacket for REAL insulation under my riding gear should the need arise. Up here it usually does.

[Northwoods_Maine]

About 20 years ago I lived in Colorado. I worked as a regional sales mgr. covering half the country. My local rep in Denver and I decided to make a three day trip around Colorado on our bikes making sales calls on our distributors. I was on my '88 Katanna 1100, he was on his FXRT. It was early June and the temps were in the 70s as we pulled out of Denver on I-70W. Everything was wonderful until we started to gain elevation. About 30 minutes west of Denver it got much colder and started to rain. We stopped to don our rain gear and although we were very cold we figured it was just one of those quick moving mountain showers that we'd ride out of in a 3-4 miles. Wrong! It soon changed to snow and long before we got to the Eisenhower tunnel we were sloshing and sliding our way through 3" of wet, slushy snow. The only way to remain upright was to keep the bike straight up and down and follow in the less slush filled tracks of a car. It was bad enough on the Katanna but Bob was having to use both feet as outriggers to keep his HD upright. Once we got through the tunnel and started down the other side the weather in front of us reversed itself. By the time we were halfway to Grand Junction we were stopping to strip layers of clothes off.

The next day's ride south on Rte. 550 through Ouray, Teleuride, and into Silverton for lunch was spectacular. Probably the prettiest ride in Colorado. When we left Silverton I told Bob I was going to take advantage of the Katanna's speed and handling on this smooth, very curvey road and wick-it- up a bit, but that I'd wait for him somewhere alomg the road long before we got to Durango. Of course, you know that I hadn't gone 15 miles when I ran into a Sherrif's Dept. deputy shooting radar. It was a short and financially painful conversation; made more painful when Bob caught up and pulled over to wait for me. He said something about the tortoise and the hare. I gave him the one finger salute and we headed to Durango.

On our way home late the following afternoon, we had to cross the Continental Divide one last time, and although I don't remember the name of the pass on Rte. 160, I do know that we topped out at more than 12,000 feet and it was so cold that you had to keep banging your gloved hands against the gas tank to try to straighten your fingers and keep the circulation going. It was one of several bike trips that we both remember fondly today.

[HarleyCreation]

About 20 years ago I lived in Colorado. I worked as a regional sales mgr. covering half the country. My local rep in Denver and I decided to make a three day trip around Colorado on our bikes making sales calls on our distributors. I was on my '88 Katanna 1100, he was on his FXRT. It was early June and the temps were in the 70s as we pulled out of Denver on I-70W. Everything was wonderful until we started to gain elevation. About 30 minutes west of Denver it got much colder and started to rain. We stopped to don our rain gear and although we were very cold we figured it was just one of those quick moving mountain showers that we'd ride out of in a 3-4 miles. Wrong! It soon changed to snow and long before we got to the Eisenhower tunnel we were sloshing and sliding our way through 3" of wet, slushy snow. The only way to remain upright was to keep the bike straight up and down and follow in the less slush filled tracks of a car. It was bad enough on the Katanna but Bob was having to use both feet as outriggers to keep his HD upright. Once we got through the tunnel and started down the other side the weather in front of us reversed itself. By the time we were halfway to Grand Junction we were stopping to strip layers of clothes off.

The next day's ride south on Rte. 550 through Ouray, Teleuride, and into Silverton for lunch was spectacular. Probably the prettiest ride in Colorado. When we left Silverton I told Bob I was going to take advantage of the Katanna's speed and handling on this smooth, very curvey road and wick-it- up a bit, but that I'd wait for him somewhere alomg the road long before we got to Durango. Of course, you know that I hadn't gone 15 miles when I ran into a Sherrif's Dept. deputy shooting radar. It was a short and financially painful conversation; made more painful when Bob caught up and pulled over to wait for me. He said something about the tortoise and the hare. I gave him the one finger salute and we headed to Durango.

On our way home late the following afternoon, we had to cross the Continental Divide one last time, and although I don't remember the name of the pass on Rte. 160, I do know that we topped out at more than 12,000 feet and it was so cold that you had to keep banging your gloved hands against the gas tank to try to straighten your fingers and keep the circulation going. It was one of several bike trips that we both remember fondly today.

Another great story. It's true, the tougher the ride the more memorable it becomes in later years.

I took that Ouray-Silverton-Durango journey a few years ago but in a car. Very beautiful. I liked Silverton best. Up high, cold, and kind of rough hewn.