Your COLDEST LONGEST MC Ride!

[HarleyCreation]

Doesn't have to be on a real antique. I just got back from what was probably my 3rd coldest longest ride in my 33 years of riding motorcycles. Here are the details:

Left Friday for southern Wis. (280 miles one way) on my '76 BMW R75/6 w/Luftmeister fairing. Left just after the rain stopped with temp about 36 F. But I had on so many clothes I stayed comfortable and was quite toasty most of the time.

On top: Tee-shirt. Long johns. HEAVY wool Brit submariner's sweater. Another wool sweater. Down vest. Winter parka. Insulated leather parka. Outer belt to keep the air out.

Bottom: Long johns, wool pants, insulated Austrian surplus bib trousers.

Other: Harley-Davidson winter gloves (they are warm). Stocking cap under my helmet. Space socks and heavy wool socks under my East German surplus riding boots. (Beemer cylinders help keep your feet warm).

On the way south from Northern Wis. the road was wet most of the way as I was just behind the rain -- thank goodness. And as I went south the temps rose until it was in the 50s. But 30 miles from Madison the sky grew plutonic black ahead and down came the rain! Nothing like being in fast freeway traffic in a heavy downpour! So I got off the freeway ASAP and ducked into a Culver's where I parked my bike under an eave of a building and went inside for a burger. Rain stopped, but started again when I took off. The worst was over fortunately and I got to my destination (UW-Mad) just as it was getting dark and with me only slightly wet and not soaked. I was glad!

The ride back yesterday was colder. In the 40s when I left Madison and 35 F. when I got home. Near the Baraboo quartzite hills it started to drizzle and I thought I was doomed. But it soon stopped and was dry the rest of the way. Sky nearly cleared off north of Eau Claire. Temps were dropping though and my fingers got slightly cold. But I rode fast and then faster, passing nearly every car on the highway. Kept in the right lane except when passing and I always use my directionals when changing lanes. I wish other people would do that instead of HANGING in the left lane and blocking traffic. They should punch that thing and pass and then get over!

Needless to say I did NOT see any other motorcycles on the road. Not one. At Eau Claire I stopped in Farm & Fleet for a couple of chainsaw items, then blasted another hundred miles home where I found everything in good order. Felt like I'd been gone a month, but it was only 2 days. The bald back tire I should have replaced last year got another year out of it, but that's enough from a cheap Cheng Shin!

BMW ran perfectly as always. But the tach finally blew. Made funny noises for years, but then the needle started swinging wildly then around and around like something in a cartoon. The noise was a horrible screeching sound and I shouted at it: "Break and get it over with, will ya?!" Then the needle just flew off.

Who really needs a tach anyway?

So yesterday it started snowing about 3 pm and left a couple nasty wet inches of slushy snow, and it's been dripping and raining all day today. I just missed this crap by one day. Who says I don't have any luck with the motorcycle weather god that "Hap" and those other old time riders called Jupiter Pluvius.

Any other long cold or snowy ride stories as winter settles in?

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A lesson in cognitive dissonance:

http://www.atthecreation.com/

[RWasson]

While your ride was long and cold, I put the most miles in the fewest degrees during a 9-month stretch in 1978-79 when my parked car had been totalled and I rode my CB750 66 miles roundtrip to and from work between Lexington and Richmond, KY on I-75. Many nights were below 20 degrees and once I experienced single digits coming home after work at midnight (those were the days when I was a radio deejay working the night shift).

My secret to keeping warm. The faster you go the colder you get until about 80 m.p.h. Then the friction from the air warms you up like the skin on a rocket re-entering the atmosphere. (get it? cool?)

[RWasson]

I forgot to mention the obvious about warming myself with the air friction on 15 degree nights Kentucky by blasting faster than 80: it only worked because I had no windshield or fairing. I am glad that I moved to Florida where I look forward to the rare day that I can have a reason to put on my black leather jacket.

Roy

[k.perry]

H.W. said,
"Kept in the right lane except when passing and I always use my directionals when changing lanes. I wish other people would do that instead of HANGING in the left lane and blocking traffic. They should punch that thing and pass and then get over!"

I learned that, about punching it, when passing big "Dino" trucks with I-beam cattleguard bumpers (that went..."bla-da-da-da-da-da", when drivers go foot-off the pedal), while riding down a 1% downgrade on my showroom new-white-R75, between ZellAmZee glacier returning to Kitzbuhel in Austria. My friend J.J, had his R75 punched out with a 900cc factory kit from the Munich dealer. There's no way I could keep up with him. He had so much available torque with that kit, that I would only see him ahead of me, coming out from behind the shadows of cliff promontorys and then into the sunlight. Hanging by minimal Continental® rubber, he would rapidly approach a tandem truck from behind and without hesitation hook around the Alpine-sleeper safely, even when the "on-coming happenings" I viewed, started looking like things were getting tight for him! The boxer BMW's will sink into a curve the more you turn the throttle, but the frames will rise if you should turn the throttle off even only a little during the middle of a curve. Makes the machine go squiggly. So, you need to twist the grip through a curve and stay on it. However, the R75's did have a center fork damper to help with the twist, and they had this peculiar (name-it-and-claim-it) smooth-cast aluminum (gear position) indicator arm on the transmission that looked like a jockey-stub, but you couldn't shift with it. Those feet warming cylinders could really take a whack too and not be damaged. I liked my Bing carbs. The BMW was dependable and it had an auxillary kick-starter if you needed the practice.

[ldr]

coldest ride

My coldest ride was in the late spring of 1950. Went with several other members of the old Mountaineer's MC Club from Morgantown, W.Va. across the Pennsylvania Turnpike heading for Langhorne, Pa. race track to watch Jimmy Chann, HD's hot shoe at the time, race at Langhorne. Got caught in the snow in the Allegeheny mountains in Pa. and had to turn back. Snow about 4 or 5 inches and I will always remember the ride back. It was very slick and we each fell several times before we got home.

[k.perry]

I use to ride my Honda 305 between San Clemente and Long Beach when I was a squid in the Navy. We were poor (the navy paid me and my two pals $80.00 bucks a month), but we had "issue" P-coats, 305 tin-wing "Scramblers" and thefted canvas flight deck caps. Couldn't afford gloves. We had to be back at the ship by 6am on Monday mornings, so we left San Clemente at about 4 am. Riding down through those canyons next to the beach between Dana Point and Laguna, you'd think, "well this is as cold as it can get"..hands frozen to the hard plastic grips..........and then you'd go deeper into the ravine and it would get even.... COLDER!!!! haw!... Frozen anchor-clanking-squid meat.

[Rod]

In 1967 I rode my Triumph TR6 180 miles from Brownfield, Texas to San Angelo, Texas in dry, 20 degree weather. I was stationed in San Antonio while in the Air Force. I had on all the clothes I could wear but still had to stop about every 15 minutes and do jumping jacks or run in place for a couple of minutes to warm up and keep from passing out from hypothermia. I never want to do it again. Yesterday I rode my '63 FLH 45 miles from Amherst, NH to the Harley shop in Keene, NH. On the way over it was fine at 60 degrees or so. On the way home it got dark and the temp dropped to 45. The light on the Harley was marginal and my tolerance for cold is too.

[T. Cotten]

Is a '68 450cc Honda vintage yet?

Young and stupid and ready to prove a point, I put the engine's oil on the pilot light of the stove overnight so I could pour it in the next morning for a three-kick startup, and then road to work at 10 below fahrenheit.....Damn visor kept fogging up is all.

But....Rode a Pan home from Indianapolis to Peoria once in the same dumn snowsuit at 40 degrees,... and froze my buns severely: The coldest ride I'll ever take. Distance makes the difference, much more than the ambient temperature.[

[RWasson]

Is '68 Honda 450 a Classic yet?

Must be a classic. A recent issue of Classic Bike has a '66 for 500 pounds (what is that, about $750) with the following puffing description of its condition: "Will fire up." That is damning it with such faint praise that it must mean that the bike is a rolling basket case.

Another 450 I saw for sale is a '71 described as being in "excellent condition" for $1,500. That probably means "fair to good" condition, right? What did the '68 go for new, about $850? Maybe a definition of a "classic" is a bike in only average condition which sells for ____% more than the same model fetched when new.

[AdminGuy]

I once rode 4 hours at approx. 22F. I was wearing full leathers. My gloved hands locked up a few times. It was a painful long ride. It takes a long time for your core body temperature to return. After the third or fourth stop everyone is real slow at getting the show on the road again.

Coldest weather I've ever experienced was (w/ wind chill) -65F. On top of a mountain. Wicked nasty white out. Not bad if your dressed for it. After -15F it all feels the same to me. Wicked cold.

My sister gave me a hikers key tag temp/compass thing. It has a wind chill chart on the back. I've pulled it out at a gas station once or twice to remind myself to slow down on cold mornings. Shaded frosty corners are another good reason.

I have learned some tricks- ie. make sure your limbs work before you come to a stop. Knees will unlock, fingers will move. A friend fell over sideways once at a hwy off ramp. It was very slow motion and sort of surreal. Luckily not hurt. Damaged pride.
2. Don't work up a sweat starting the bike. If it feels like you may-strip off those jackets first. Then put them back on when your ready to go.

When things have gotten really rough in the middle of no where. Unzipping outer jacket and letting it hang over tanks, lay down on tanks, place gloved hands gripping under side of tanks to warm hands. A safe distance. After a few min. I climb off and walk around briefly. Do a little stretching, thinking about wind shields, heated grips and electric socks.

I'm too chicken to do this sort of stuff now. Well, maybe once a season for a quicky. New Years. Just to remind myself of past- painful experiences. When I see someone riding in cold weather from the car. I touch the windshield with my hand to get an idea. Then with the same hand I turn the heat up another notch.

new wind chill chart.

[RWasson]

Cool Front Sweeping Florida

Yep, a "North'r" is blowing down this way. Heard the weather man say it might get way down into the seventies during the daylight hours. Who knows, maybe the high 50's at night.

Bring out my denin (no, the leather!) jacket for some cool riding in South Florida. Sorry to rub it in, Northern brothers and sisters.

Roy, the Nightrider

[1776J]

Mine was,....

Mine was fron Corning New York to Glen Lyon, PA in the middle of February!
Was 17 degrees when I LEFT the guy's place where I had purchased a bike,... then it just dropped as the sun went down!
It started to snow several times,... I was layered in long johns, thermals of all sorts, and carhartts! The wind was soo horribly painful to my face and eyes I had stopped off at a ski place to buy snow goggles and a balaclava,.... this was after about 1 hour of riding with nothing!

I would stop off 45 minutes to an hour at a gas station or the like to get warmed up. At one stop I walked in all bundled up, looking like some type of homeless guy, grabbed a huge hot chocolate and walked up the counter to pay for it,... when the gal asked wht the hell I was doing on a motorcycle I explained that I had no other way to get it back home but to ride it in the weather,.... she said, "Oh my God!,... here,... the drink's on me!,... Good Luck!"

The ride was approx. 155 miles, but took us about 4.5 hours due to the weather.

Makes me cold just thinking about it!

[Slojo]

1982 or 3 Daytona Bike Week Florida to Detroit Metro. Michigan on a 66 Shuv. It was already below 30 F. prior to getting out of Florida. The thermometer must have thought it was a Linkart carb because it just kept leaking mercury dropping to single digits aided by high winds and snow fluries by the time I entered Michigan about 1200 miles later.
Joe

[Ross]

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.

[Slojo]

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.

Man.... All I want to hear about is the Gold Eye fishing through the ice, how bout it Ross?
Joe