Relevant Re-post: Winter Riding Tips

Its cold, you’re cold, but the riding continues!

Winter Riding

• Pre-winter
• Dealing with the cold
• Riding in the snow
• Winter bike maintenance
• Dealing With The Rain

Baby It’s Cold Outside, Whats Your Winter Gear Setup?

Winter Inspiration

Boston Bikers Braving The Brisk Breeze (Winter Riding Pics!)

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Winter Events At Ferris Wheels

Free Winter Riding Clinic

Don’t let winter weather knock you out of your saddle. Come talk to seasoned bike commuters to hear how you, too, can keep riding year-round! Join us at Ferris Wheels Bike Shop (66 South Street, JP) on Thursday, November 29, at 7:00pm.

Staff with decades of experience riding year-round will lead this interactive clinic. Come with questions!

Trainer Nights Return

Break out your road bike and join us for a fun evening group “ride” in the shop, Tuesday nights starting after Thanksgiving on Tuesday, November 27, 7:00-9:00pm. Check our calendar for upcoming dates or give us a call.

Feb. 2011 trainer ride at Ferris Wheels Bike Shop

This is a free trainer ride with training videos and movies. Bring your own trainer or try one of ours.

SPACE IS LIMITED! PLEASE RSVP for each week to [email protected] or call the shop at 617-524-BIKE (2453). Let us know if you need to borrow a trainer.

Shop Local in JP with Boston Beans

Ferris Wheels Bike Shop and Fresh Copy are participating in the JP NET’s experiment to encourage holiday shopping at locally-owned Jamaica Plain businesses.

JP NET hosts a potluck on Tuesday, November 27, 6:30-9:00pm at the Nate Smith House (155 Lamartine St, JP) to kick off the Boston Beans program. Click here for the facebook event.

At this potluck, JP NET will be handing out $5-equivalent Boston Bean slips. You can pick up one per person and spend them at local participating businesses. Read more about Boston Beans on JP Patch.

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Hubway Shutting Down Soon, But There Is Still Plenty Of Time To Ride

From the email:

 

Dear Hubway Member, It’s Almost That Time…

The low-hanging sun on the horizon and leafless trees throughout town are both indicators that the Hubway 2012 season is coming to a close. As we did last year, our pack-up plan consists initially of a phased drawdown of our on-street stations and those stations with expiring permits. This will begin on Monday, November 19th and continue through our last day of operation on Wednesday, November 28th. The system shuts down completely at 11:59pm that day, and we then collect the rest of the stations and bicycles as quickly as we can to beat the arrival of old man winter.

Hubway will provide 48 hours notice preceding the take down of each station.  This information will be posted to our News page, Facebook page and Twitter feed to allow you time to make alternate transit plans.  Please visit us often and stay informed on our system shut-down progress.

Between now and then there is still plenty of time to ride, so get out there and log those last few trips of the season and help us get to 700,000 rides! (As of today, we’re up to 654,971 rides!)

Thanks to you, Hubway has emerged in its second year of operations as a critical piece of the transit network here in metro-Boston and one of the most successful bikeshare systems in the world. We are #realtransportation, we are Hubway.

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Winterize Your Bicycle (Snacks And Free Beer!)

From the email.

—————–
Free and open to all cyclists – Winterize with the Boston Cyclists Union and Giant Cycling World at 11 Kilmarnock Street across from the Landmark Center in Boston. Sunday Dec. 4th from 5-7pm. Learn how to extend your riding season with a collection of great tips for year-round cyclists. We’ll teach you the basics of: how to maintain your bicycle through the sleet and snow, how to ride safely on icy & slush-filled roads, how to stay visible in the dark, and how to stay warm and toasty. Hosted by Giant Cycling World with free snacks and beer for those of age.

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Spring Time Dreams

I closed my eyes for a moment just now and was overcome by the feeling you get when you ride your bike at high speed through a warm summer night. That perfect wind through your hair feeling, that lighter than air nothing can stop you feeling, that cricket filled placid feeling. The kind of night that feels alive with possibility, bikes and adventure, sitting on the docks near the river, hill climbs and night races, of secret spots and hide and seek.

I can’t wait for that first nice summer night, I am going to ride every mile of Boston’s streets to celebrate the end to the cold weather.

I think I can only handle winter until Jan 31st, the month of February always destroys my love of snow and chill air. Every year as soon as March rolls around I start to feel better. How do the rest of you deal with the long dark winters?

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Cleaning Your Bike In The Winter (Or A Physical Manifestation Of My Shame)

Jay left this comment:

“Any advice for a fool that left his bike in the snow? (Cleaning wise, anyways)”

In an effort to answer Jay’s questions I present my own bicycle as an example…the shame burns.

I have become one of those people with a rusty creaking chain…I hang my head.

So last night I gathered up my pride and a damp towel and started in on the beast. After 10 minutes and the removal of both wheels (more on that in a later post) My bike looked like this.

My Method:

Damp towel + elbow grease + liberal amounts of chain lube = clean bike.

I wipe down the entire frame, wipe down the rims, the hubs, the cranks etc. Then I apply a lot of lube to the chain, and wipe the chain down, apply more lube, wipe, repeat till chain looks like metal again, then lube liberally and wipe once more.

What I Do Not Do:

Spray water on my bike. Spraying water can drive it into places you do not want it, especially in the winter where it will freeze/rust things you care about.

Work outside. Its just too damn cold, the damp rag method seems to work just fine cleaning it inside.

Worry about getting it perfect. If you look you will see plenty of dirty left on the bike, I just try to knock off most of it. Its just going to snow again next week, so I am not getting out the tooth brush.

In a perfect world I would do this wipe down every day, but as well know the world is not perfect, and often when you come home from a hairy snow day commute the last thing you want to do is wipe down your bike. So I try to knock back the horrible at least once or twice a month. Having an aluminum bike helps.

I hope these tips help you reduce your own shame at having a filthy bike in the winter.

Feel free to leave any tips for winter bike cleaning in the comments.

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Preparing For Battle

In the olden days, knights used to have a trained armor guy who would attach all the little bits of armor to them. This guy had to be well trained because if the armor fell off, or didn’t fit right, well things didn’t go well for that knight.

On mornings like today I feel like I need my own peasant trained in armor attachment. I mean yea, I am not fighting the Gauls or anything, but it does take me a while to get all my layers on.

Generally if its above 30 out, I wear spandex with shorts over, a long sleeve shirt, a short sleeve shirt, and a hoody. But on days like today I put on the full battle suit and go for it.

From the inside out:

Lower half:
undergarments and wool socks, spandex pants, shorts, a belt.

Upper half:
long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt, tight hoody, loose hoody,

Head/Face:
cycling cap, wool cap, helmet, scarf around face

Hands:
Thinsulate gloves, cheap gloves that have the fingers cut out with the little mitten thing that goes over them.

Anything below 10 degrees, I swap out the converse for a pair of hiking boots.

Even with the cold today, the lack of strong wind made it very pleasant to ride to work, I saw dozens of other cyclists out and none of them looked miserable.

You can get more tips for dealing with the cold here and here.

Whats your armor regiment? Do you go high tech, low tech, something in between?

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Somerville Illuminations Bike Tour

Got this in the email, thanks for the tip Ron, looks like a fun ride.

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Please join the Somerville Bicycle Committee on Saturday evening, Dec. 18, to celebrate the coming of winter and year round cycling. We will enjoy a casual tour to see some of the city’s homes warmly lit for the holidays.

We will meet at the Somerville High School entrance at 6:50pm, departing promptly at 7:15 pm. We will tour the city in coordination with the Somerville Arts Council’s Illuminations Holiday Trolley Tour the same
evening ( click here for more details )

This is a winter evening ride, so please dress warmly and use bike lights.

Poster is here —

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